1  HE  0-A.L 

OP  Educat 

BiolooicalIntegrity 

«MnM(*t«*HNItlMMMMMMM0 

DO"YI.E 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 

MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


THE    CALL    OF 

EDUCATION 


Volume  One 


Biological    I  ntegrity 


By 
J.   H.    DOYLE 

(Lecturer) 


1^^^ 


Published  by 

THE  J.  H.  DOYLE  COMPANY 

Hammond,  Indiana 

Price  Three  Dollars,  Not  Prepaid 


Copyrighted 

BY 

J.  H.  doyle: 

1921 


All  rights  reserved  in  all 
countries. 


HAMMOND     PRES3 
3.    CONKEY   COMPANY 
CHICAGO 


?)St  ^,'2 


V 


©ebkateb 

To  The  Childhood  Army  of  The  World 

And  To  Youth 

And  To  All  The  Years  That  Follow 


Wiy±i^f^t  :^ 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 

in  2008  witii  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.arcliive.org/details/callofeducationOOdoylricli 


CONTENTS 

Preface  Page  Seven 
chapter  page 

I.     The  Curtain  Drawn 9 

II.     The  Great  Question;  and  The  World's  Answer     .     .  30 

III.  The  Great  Question;  and  My  Own  Answer     ...  50 

IV.  The  Purpose  of  Education ;  and  The  World's  Answer  63 

V.     The  Purpose  of  Education;  and  My  Own  Answer     .  84 

VI.     The  Purpose  of  Education :  Biological  Integrity  and 

Fear 99 

VII.     The    Purpose    of    Education :    Biological    Integi-ity ; 

Fear:  Its  Genetic  Aspects 113 

VIII.     The    Purpose    of    Education:    Biological    Integrity; 

Fear :  Its  Physical  Effects 125 

IX.     The    Purpose    of    Education:    Biological    Integrity; 

Fear:  Its  Relation  to  Childhood 141 

X.     The    Purpose    of    Education:    Biological    Integrity; 

The  Views  of  Plato 166 

XI.     The    Purpose    of    Education :    Biological    Integrity ; 

Courage  and  Cowardice 201 

XII.     The    Purpose    of    Education :    Biological    Integrity ; 

Introversion 220 

XIII.  The    Purpose    of    Education:    Biological    Integrity; 

Psychic    Re-education 260 

XIV.  The  Purpose  of  Education  :  Biological  Integrity;  Con- 

clusion and  Summary 275 

5 


PREFACE 

THE  printing  press  was  invented  in  1445.  At  that  time 
I  presume  that  everyone  thought  that  it  was  going  to  be 
a  wonderful  thing  for  the  world.  And  perhaps  it  has  been. 
I  do  not  know.  Undoubtedly  the  sole  criterion  must  be  the 
basic  character  of  the  message — the  amount  of  pertinent 
and  essential  truth  that  the  printed  word  is  daily  sifting 
into  the  mind  of  man,  and  permanently  into  the  thought  im- 
press of  civilization. 

But  judged  on  this  basis  I  often  wonder — ^because  after 
nearly  five  centuries  I  see  vastly  more  of  error  and  igno- 
rance and  superficiality  projected  by  the  printing  press 
than  I  do  of  truth.  As  a  result  of  those  centuries,  a  cast  of 
mental  darkness  and  mental  inertia,  like  some  mysterious 
mesmeric  spell,  seems  everywhere  to  endure  in  the  human 
mind  as  no  granite  has  ever  endured  in  any  quarry.  In- 
deed at  times  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  the  chief  function 
of  the  printing  press  has  been  to  give  voice  to  things  that 
are  worthless  and  destructive — ^and  to  perpetuate  things 
that  are  not  so. 

Nor  is  our  own  immediate  day  exempt  from  this  charge 
in  any  way — for  there  has  perhaps  never  been  a  time  in 
history  when  there  were  more  writers  and  speakers,  and 
fewer  profound  thinkers  than  at  this  very  hour.  In  fact  the 
utter  mediocrity  of  present-day  thought  and  leadership  is 
one  of  the  most  impeaching  realities  with  which  any  age 
was  ever  marked. 

Well,  it  is  in  the  midst  of  such  conditions  and  such 
an  age  that  I  give  this  book  to  the  world.  I  do  so  with  the 
profoundest  conviction  that  there  is  nothing  of  such  monu- 
mental importance  on  this  earth  today  as  for  every  civili- 
zation to  get  into  its  head  the  correct  notion  as  to  what 
education  should  consist  of — and  for  every  individual  to 
get  into  his  head  a  like  notion. 

7 


8  PEEFACE 

Accordingly,  this  book  is  written  for  every  country.  It 
is  written  for  the  home,  the  school,  the  church,  and  the 
state.  It  is  written  for  parents,  teachers,  students,  citizens. 
And  it  is  written  for  every  library  and  every  educational 
institution  in  the  world. 

The  tone  of  the  book  itself  is  critical  and  controversial  to 
the  last  degree — for  in  my  opinion  it  is  high  time  for  some- 
one to  strike  a  new  and  fundamental  note  in  education — to 
go  back  at  once  to  the  springs,  rather  than  waste  more  time 
paddling  in  the  streams — and  thus  to  trace  to  their  very 
lair  the  fictitious  values  and  the  intrenched  superficialities 
that  make  prey  upon  mankind  everywhere. 

At  the  same  time,  the  reader  will  note  that  this  book  is 
volume  one  of  a  series.  My  present  plans  are  to  speak  to 
the  world  again  in  due  time,  through  volume  two. 

August  1,  1921.  J.H.D. 


CHAPTER  I. 
THE  CURTAIN  DRAWN 

Far  above  the  tedious  objectives  of  history,  one  problem 
must  forever  remain  the  most  important  ever  undertaken 
by  mankind.  It  is  the  problem  of  education.  No  other 
human  endeavor  can  ever  match  it.  No  undertaking  in  all 
the  ages  has  been  so  fundamentally  sacred  and  serious.  The 
treasure  vaults  of  eternity  have  never  contained  a  gem  so 
precious. 

The  wreckage  and  ruin  of  a  crude  educational  art  is  to 
be  found  in  every  recess  of  immemorial  antiquity.  The 
earliest  gropings  of  primitive  man  testify  to  this  fact.  Like 
a  great  autograph,  it  has  threaded  its  way  over  and  into  the 
sands  of  every  nation. 

From  the  dateless  dust  of  the  desert,  Egypt  spoke  in 
her  own  time.  It  was  a  voice  from  her  brickyards  and  her 
quarries ;  from  her  priests  and  her  dead — a  voice  from  the 
flood  plains  of  the  Nile.  It  was  perhaps  the  first  Turanian 
voice  from  the  annals  of  antiquity.  That  triad  was  com- 
pleted with  the  voice  of  Chaldea — and  China  echoing  across 
the  vast  stretches  of  the  Orient.  Simultaneously  the  gongs 
in  the  Semitic  temples  were  sounded  by  Babylonia  and 
Assyria.  Then  too  welled  up  the  first  tunings  of  educa- 
tional symphony  in  Persia,  Media,  India.  And  they  were 
the  Aryans.  They  completed  the  three  great  races  which 
were  destined  to  be  the  torch  bearers  of  civilization.  And 
thus  in  the  night  of  long  lost  shadows,  gradually  awoke  the 
mental  glimmerings  of  savage  and  barbaric  mind  every- 
where, even  as  reluctant  fogs  in  the  rising.  Such,  in  a  word, 
is  the  antiquity,  scope  and  significance  of  education. 

But  for  ages  the  problem  has  remained  unsolved.  The 
one  great  riddle  of  eternity  stands  as  Sphinx-like  today  as 
it  did  along  the  river  Nile  sixty  centuries  ago.    And  every 

9 


10  THE    CUETAIN   DRAWN 

traveler  who  has  passed  by  the  way  has  paused  to  solve  it. 
But  still  sits  the  Sphinx  by  the  roadside.  Along  the  defiles 
of  the  centuries,  like  some  mighty  canyon  in  ruined  relief, 
the  shadows  of  time  have  had  but  one  significant  companion 
— the  voice  of  a  lost  education  crying  out  in  the  wilderness. 
And,  as  the  centuries  have  grown,  that  voice  has  not  been 
stilled.  Nor  has  it  grown  dim.  Perhaps  as  never  before  in 
all  time  does  the  unheard  voice  of  education  call  out  today 
for  an  ear  that  can  hear.  Like  the  sword  of  Damocles  the 
problem  of  education  hangs  at  this  hour  over  the  heads  of 
every  people  on  the  globe. 

And  there  are  reasons  for  the  unsolved  riddle  and  the 
unheard  voice.  The  greatest  of  those  reasons  is  this :  In  no 
age  of  history  has  education  ever  occupied  the  center  of  any 
human  stage.  The  seriousness  of  education  has  never  been 
fully  perceived  by  any  civilization.  In  the  mind  of  man  the 
importance  of  education  has  always  existed  in  terms  of 
human  consequences  only — and  never  in  terms  of  human 
consciousness.  The  mind  of  no  stage  of  culture  has  ever 
viewed  education  in  anything  like  its  real  momentousness. 
Hence,  with  all  its  sacredness  and  all  its  importance,  there 
has  perhaps  never  been  any  single  word  spoken  more  glibly 
than  this  very  word  education.  It  is  one  of  time's  touching 
tragedies  that  education  has  ever  played  the  role  of  silent 
partner  in  the  roar  and  thunder  of  human  affairs,  running 
noiselessly  along  like  some  mighty  subterranean  river. 

No  epoch  in  all  recorded  time  has  ever  appreciated  the 
imposing  fact  that  education  must  be  made  absolutely  and 
unqualifiedly  the  basis  of  every  problem  on  the  planet.  Let 
man  solve  any  problem  without  the  counsel  of  education, 
and  that  problem  will  meet  him  for  solution  again  tomorrow 
— and  with  it  a  thousand  entailing  problems.  Solving  any 
problem  without  education  is  much  like  drowning  a  cat — it 
will  beat  one  home.  And  let  us  bear  in  mind  that  any  edu- 
cation that  mankind  invokes  must  be  right.  No  other  type 
of  education  will  do  at  all.  The  word  education  itself  can 
only  delude.  It  is  unquestionably  the  pursuit  and  the 
application  of  an  education  merely  in  name  that  still  enables 


THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN  11 

the  Sphinx  so  persistently  and  so  patiently  to  remain 
among  us. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  at  all  times  and  in  all  ages, 
the  human  race  has  wanted  to  know  the  truth  of  being. 
But  education  has  never  correctly  answered  that  vague  and 
touching  call.  Long  therefore  has  mankind  struggled  in 
chains.  Those  chains  have  ever  been  the  same — the  relent- 
less bondage  of  ignorance.  For  the  most  part,  ignorance 
has  been  the  eternal  basis  of  human  existence,  individually 
and  socially.  To  king  ignorance,  life  has  been  an  age-long 
martyrdom.  It  seems  as  if  the  quicksands  of  ignorance  have 
carpeted  the  planet  since  the  da^n  of  creation.  We  are  told 
that  for  two  interminable  years  Spartacus  intrenched  him- 
self in  the  crater  of  the  extinct  volcano  and  baffled  the 
Roman  legions.  But  for  interminable  centuries  ignorance 
has  intrenched  itself  in  the  human  mind  and  baffled  and 
bled  all  mankind.  Ignorance  is  a  vile  fountain  from  which 
there  flows  forth  a  steady  stream  of  intelligence  wounded 
to  the  heart.  It  has  flown  on  forever  in  the  past,  as  it  flows 
today,  a  continuation  of  Tiber's  muddy  stream  overflooding 
the  world  with  defilement.  And  the  jeering  mockery  of  the 
whole  spectacle  is,  that  wherever  ignorance  has  ever  oper- 
ated, it  has  alwaj^s  been  in  the  garb  of  truth.  This  is  why  it 
is  that  down  through  the  ages  actual  truth  has  been  so  per- 
sistently burned  at  the  stake.  But  somehow  the  stake  of 
ignorance  has  always  survived.  And  wherever  that  stake 
reigns,  there  principle  hangs  crucified. 

And  thus  it  is  that  the  call  and  cry  of  the  human  race 
for  that  obscure  something  that  might  spell  relief  has  never 
been  accurately  answered.  To  that  overwhelming  extent, 
ignorance,  instead  of  truth,  has  directed  the  gropings  of 
man.  I  speak  plainly  and  boldly  in  order  that  the  world 
may  understand.  Our  answer  to  the  Sphinx  is  but  the  hol- 
lowest  mockery.  Probably  there  w^as  never  a  time  in  all 
recorded  history  when  humanity  was  so  close  to  the  break- 
ing point  as  today.  The  real  drama  of  life  is  now  on. 
Wherever  one  looks,  the  witnesses  are  entering  the  box.  On 
all  sides  is  unrest.    It  is  like  the  turbulent  calm  which  fore- 


12  THE    CURTAIN    DRAWN 

tells  a  storm.  Everywhere  is  aimlessness,  superficiality, 
neurotic  haste  and  discontentment.  Conflicting  purposes 
abound  on  every  hand.  Human  despair  is  abroad  with  a 
tempestuosity  that  is  engulfing.  The  sweep  is  cyclonic. 
Poverty  stalks  broadcast  in  every  civilization.  Human 
misery  was  perhaps  never  more  intense.  Sickness  and  dis- 
ease are  everywhere — from  the  palace  of  the  rich  to  the 
hovel  of  the  poor.  Human  ills  are  multiplying  faster  than 
time  itself.  Cure  one  disease — and  a  score  of  new  ones  leap 
to  its  place.  Epidemics  chase  one  another  around  the 
world  wdth  a  rapidity  and  a  cleadliness  that  stagger  civi- 
lization. Insanity  is  filling  our  asylums  with  human  wrecks 
faster  than  society  can  foot  the  bills.  Feeblemindedness  is 
beyond  all  bounds.  Our  penitentiaries  are  filled  with  con- 
victs. Crime  has  become  colossal  in  its  proportions.  Suicide 
was  never  so  common.  Health  has  deserted  the  planet. 
Broken  hearts  and  ruined  minds  are  written  into  the  human 
countenance  wherever  we  turn.  Fal.se  ideals  dominate  the 
individual  and  social  fabric  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to 
the  other.  Duplicity  is  largely  the  ethical  guide  of  the 
world.  Pretense  dominates  the  human  mind.  Sincerity  has 
been  crushed. 

I  submit  it  as  an  avowed  fact  that  by  sheer  virtue  of 
Nature  herself,  every  person  in  life  has  an  actual,  fight  on  his 
hands.  Furthermore,  our  social  system  should  help  him  in 
that  fight — ^and  not  hinder  him.  But  everywhere  and  al- 
ways, society  has  been  anti-social.  Both  education  and 
w^ealth  have  made  it  so.  That  is  why  society  has  always  been 
in  the  rapids.  Today  society  heaves  and  tosses  as  on  a  thin 
crust  above  a  volcano.  The  roar  of  an  impending  catas- 
trophe is  already  in  our  ears.  Always  society  has  memorial- 
ized itself  in  human  suffering.  I  challenge  an  exception. 
Life  is  being  burned  out  at  a  voltage  that  is  too  high.  So- 
ciety is  doing  but  little  to  reduce  that  voltage.  The  vastest 
accumulation  of  constitutionally  vested  rights  and  legalized 
thievery  of  all  history  perhaps  exists  today.  The  blind  will 
not  see  this.  Certainly  education  does  not  see  it.  But  the 
abyss  of  destruction  yawns.     The  time  is  not  unlike  the 


THE    CUETAIN   DEAWN  13 

ancient  world  before  its  dissolution.  The  poor  in  spirit  are 
legion.  But  the  poor  in  purse  are  doubly  so.  One-tenth  of 
our  people  own  nine-tenths  of  our  wealth.  It  is  as  if  the 
gates  of  reason  were  slammed  shut.  Probably  one-fifth  of 
the  population  of  our  large  cities  are  below  the  poverty  line. 
The  sores  of  Lazarus  are  deep  and  many  indeed.  Never  in 
all  eternity  will  those  sores  be  healed  by  the  insipid  plasters 
of  philanthropy,  and  never  by  the  surface  antiseptics  of 
a  superficial  education.  The  past  has  tried  them  both — 
and  they  have  ignominiously  failed. 

And  thus  while  educational  leaders  argue  on  fine  spun 
theories,  the  tragedy  of  the  multitudes  goes  on  unceasingly. 
As  Schiller  has  said,  *' While  philosophers  are  wrangling 
over  the  government  of  the  world,  hunger  and  love  are 
doing  their  work ' '.  The  table  of  life  is  wrecked  by  the  few 
in  their  revel.  They  gorge  and  sicken  themselves  on  the 
merest  sauces  of  existence.  The  vast  majority  seat  them- 
selves tired  and  exliausted.  But  they  too  seat  in  vain — for 
they  rise  hungry  from  the  feast.  To  those  millions,  life  is 
a  plexus  of  grease  and  grime,  beltings  and  wheels,  forges 
and  furnaces,  triphammers  and  cranes.  In  hunger  and  rags 
and  dejection  they  tramp  the  treadmills  of  life,  all  but 
deaf  by  the  hissing  of  steam,  the  clanging  of  bells,  the 
screeching  of  dynamoes. 

But  in  it  all,  life  goes  on.  And  age  after  age  lies  buried 
the  joy  and  the  genius  of  the  world.  It  is  the  price  in  part 
that  society  pays  for  its  waste,  its  misfits,  its  futilities.  The 
wastage  of  talent  and  opportunity  flows  ever  on.  "Bowed 
by  the  weight  of  centuries",  the  man  with  the  hoe  looks 
down.  Markham  spoke  for  us  all.  But  his  vision  beheld 
not  all  of  the  fields,  and  saw  not  into  the  hearts  of  all  of 
those  in  the  vineyards.  His  vision  did  not  see  beyond  the 
rulers  of  state.  In  yonder  councils  of  school  and  of  church 
— there  could  he  have  seen  many  of  the  springs  that  are 
feeding  perpetually  the  ceaseless  streams  of  human  suffer- 
ing. There  could  he  have  seen  that  back  of  all  the  world's 
misery;  back  of  all  its  blind  programs  of  human  procedure ; 
back  of  every  pang  of  pain  or  hunger  or  heart-ache,  has 


14  THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN 

primarily  lain,  and  lies  today — a  set  of  infamously  erron- 
eous theories — that  is,  a  functioning  ignorance  usurping 
the  throne  of  truth. 

Nor  do  I  speak  alone  for  that  great  army  of  toilers  whose 
camps  are  perpetually  pitched  so  close  to  the  poverty  line. 
For  misery  of  one  kind  or  another  must  always  hover  wher- 
ever any  hand  of  ignorance  may  cast  its  tents — even  for 
the  opulent  rich.  It  is  not  alone  a  question  of  white  teeth 
gnawing  at  the  pillars  of  time.  It  is  also  an  issue  of  be- 
wildered souls  and  aching  hearts.  "When  beholding  the  op- 
posite side  of  life's  massive  and  meaningful  shield,  one  is 
always  compelled  to  look  with  compassion  on  the  del,uded 
rich.  In  the  ultimate  analysis,  satiety  is  as  destructive  as 
poverty.  True  to  the  law  of  polarity,  they  are  twin  de- 
stroyers. The  moral  turpitude  which  obtains  in  high  life 
today  is  but  the  clarion  voice  of  unerring  causation.  Emer- 
son says  that  there  is  an  essential  duality  which  bisects  all 
Nature.  Poverty  and  riches  constitute  the  double  edged 
sword  that  proves  it.  The  inexorable  principle  is,  that  there 
are  two  poles  to  every  diameter — and  man  should  never  get 
so  close  to  either  that  he  loses  sight  of  the  other.  In  life, 
therefore,  it  is  not  merely  a  question  of  fat  kine  against  lean 
kine.  It  is  more  fundamentally  a  question  of  the  inevitable 
boomerang  that  comes  back.  Life  is  eminently  an  equation : 
Misery  in  one  direction  must  ultimately  be  balanced  by 
misery  in  another  direction.  Woe  unto  that  individual  or 
that  institution  whose  joy  is  a  source  of  misery  to  others. 
It  is  indeed  astounding  that  society  and  government  so 
persistently  refuse  to  learn  this  lesson.  History  has  fur- 
nished the  warning  for  ages. 

From  whatever  standpoint,  human  misery  and  human 
bondage  cannot  permanently  endure.  Along  the  sunburnt 
trail  of  the  centuries  there  is  no  more  unmistakable  foot- 
print than  the  affirmation  of  that  fact.  The  requiem  of  the 
winds  over  the  ashes  of  crumbled  empires  everywhere  and 
in  every  age  bears  silent  mtness  to  that  effect.  Among  other 
nations,  Rome  tried  it — and  it  failed — in  spite  of  the  count- 
less human  beings  that  she  nailed  upon  her  crosses.  And  if 


THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN  15 

any  nation  could  succeed  in  that  direction,  Rome  should — 
for  hers  was  one  of  the  most  colossal  pieces  of  infamy  ever 
recorded  in  history.  Hers  was  one  continuous  feast  of  cap- 
tured barbarians  butchered  and  slaughtered  in  the  arena. 
Emperor  Trajan  celebrated  his  victory  over  the  Dacians 
with  shows  that  lasted  more  than  one  hundred  days.  Dur- 
ing that  festivity  more  than  10,000  men  were  used  and  more 
than  10,000  wild  animals  slain.  Occasionally  a  Roman  like 
Seneca  had  the  insight  and  the  courage  to  denounce  the 
policy  as  criminal.  But  Pliny  excused  the  practices  as  ex- 
amples for  cultivating  manliness.  During  the  later  republic 
and  the  early  empire  half  of  the  population  of  the  Roman 
state  was  slave.  The  wealthy,  like  the  illiterate  rich  of  every 
age,  dawdled  their  time  in  ostentation.  Varro  classified 
slaves  as  ''vocal  agricultural  instruments".^  About  the 
same  period,  or  during  the  time  of  Christ,  about  eighty-five 
per  cent  of  the  population  of  the  city  of  Athens  were  slaves. 
Out  of  a  total  of  200,000  but  30,000  were  freemen.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  Greece  and  Rome  passed  away  ? 

And  as  we  thus  look  back  across  the  centuries,  how  in- 
adequate must  language  ever  be  to  portray  down  through 
all  the  ages  the  misery  that  could  have  been  avoided  in  this 
world.  It  makes  no  difference  whether  a  suffering  humanity 
is  crucified  under  the  bold  brazonry  of  an  unholy  Roman 
empire,  with  its  forests  of  crosses  marking  its  public  high- 
ways— or  whether  under  the  sincere  name  of  liberty,  human 
misery  lays  its  withering  hand  in  the  form  of  disease,  pov- 
erty, crushed  ambitions,  blasted  hopes,  and  life-long  bond- 
age against  odds  that  foredoom  certain  failure.  It  makes  no 
difference.  Mental  anguish  is  ever  the  same.  Poverty,  dis- 
ease and  bondage — they  can  never  be  glorified  with  glamor 
in  any  age.  Under  the  banners  of  culture  they  \vill  be 
exactly  as  under  the  totemic  shadows  of  barbarism.  A 
civilization  of  rooves,  or  a  civilization  of  tents — it  is  all 
the  same. 

But  the  planet  is  ripe  for  something.     The  boldest  and 

^  See  Preston  &  Dodge:  Private  Life  of  the  Romans;  also  Myers' 
Ancient  History,  part  II. 


16  THE    CURTAIN    DRAWN 

most  enthusiastic  opponent  of  progress  cannot  much  longer 
deny  it.  The  evidence  is  overwhelming.  Everywhere  in- 
visible chisels  are  at  work  in  the  form  of  human  unrest  born 
of  human  misery.  False  leaders  must  abdicate  in  every 
field,  whether  in  education,  religion  or  government.  Petered- 
out-tail-end  doctrines  and  policies  must  vanish.  That  insti- 
tution which  wdU  not  reform  and  evolve,  must  perish.  Any 
institution  or  any  doctrine  which  persists  in  looking  upon 
the  Universe  as  a  petrified  process  rather  than  a  flowing 
one,  must  be  driven  from  the  earth.  For  every  moment  of 
human  suffering  caused  by  the  vermiform  appendage  in  the 
human  body,  ages  of  human  misery  have  been  caused  by 
the  multitudinous  appendages  of  false  doctrines  obsessing 
the  innermost  recesses  of  the  human  mind,  implanted  there 
by  false  and  ignorant  leaders.  The  social  vestiges  of  the 
ages  are  what  must  be  destroyed — ^vestiges,  which  in  their 
day  might  have  been  pardonable  for  primitive  minds,  but 
which  today  are  a  shame  and  a  scourge  to  mankind.  Man, 
the  most  powerful  of  all  animals,  must  do  something  worthy 
of  his  kingdom.  Life  must  become  an  incandescent  lump 
glowing  with  the  unquenchable  fires  of  truth,  and  not  black- 
ened eternally  with  the  smoke  and  foUy  of  ignorance.  The 
silent  letters  of  civilization  must  pass  away.  And  educa- 
tion must  be  the  master  hand  that  strikes  them  out.  At  the 
counters  of  life,  there  must  be  but  one  legal  tender,  and 
that  tender — truth.  Every  single  transaction  in  life  must 
be  in  those  terms. 

But  here  someone  will  ask:  In  what  way  does  all  this 
concern  education?  What  has  education  got  to  do  with 
human  misery?  Wherein  is  the  question  of  education  re- 
lated to  the  prevalence  of  disease,  poverty,  suicide,  insanity, 
feeblemindedness,  criminality — ^and  in  general,  the  world's 
highway  of  aching  hearts  ? 

Those  questions  constitute  the  greatest  indictment  ever 
made  against  education — or  against  anything  else.  But 
those  questions  are  not  mine.  I  have  plucked  them  from  the 
lips  of  the  world.  They  are  unconscious  reflections  from 
the  thought  impress  of  our  civilization.     For  that  reason 


THE    CURTAIN   DEAWN  17 

those  questions  are  infallible  indicators.  They  signify  that 
our  education  is  so  far  afield  from  its  native  haunts  and  its 
true  estates  that  neither  the  world  nor  its  education  even 
recognizes  the  duties  that  are  duly  and  truly  its  own.  In 
the  olden  days  it  was  credited  to  Cain  that  he  asked,  ''Am 
I  my  brother's  keeper?"  But  present  day  education  is  far 
worse.  It  even  denies  that  it  has  a  brother.  It  does  not 
recognize  its  own  relations.  At  best,  it  may  duplicate  the 
question  of  Cain.  If  so,  my  answer  is,  that  education  is  at 
least  not  supposed  to  be  its  brother 's  robber. 

Now,  friends  should  tell  one  another  the  truth.  Above 
all,  enemies  should  be  frank.  On  both  scores  I  want  to  be 
honest  with  the  world.  I  demand  a  solution  of  our  educa- 
tional problem  anew^ — absolutely  anew.  Such  a  solution  is 
incomparably  the  greatest  need  of  the  age.  That  same  need 
has  existed  in  every  age  known  to  man.  The  problem  of 
education  has  never  been  settled  right — nor  anywhere  near 
right.  So  convinced  am  I  of  this  that  my  scorn  for  the  edu- 
cational world  is  boundless.  It  is  that  same  degree  of  con- 
tempt that  Rousseau  voiced  when  his  heart  spoke  out  in 
1762  in  that  never-to-be-forgotten  classic,  Emile.  To  be 
sure,  Rousseau  was  extreme  in  some  respects.  But  he  had  a 
thousand  reasons  to  be.  What  truly  perceiving  soul  would 
not  be  outraged  at  the  mockery  of  education  and  the  general 
state  of  social,  affairs  as  they  existed  in  Rousseau's  day?  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  Rousseau  in  his  anger  and  ardor  carried 
his  case  too  far  into  the  realms  of  an  isolated  NatMre?  I 
say — no!  And  indeed,  it  is  a  part  of  my  eontempt  for 
present  day  educational  critics,  that  they  should  attempt  to 
raise  one  finger  against  Rousseau,  either  against  his  Emile, 
or  against  the  unfortunate  fact  that  his  three  children  were 
sent  to  a  foundling  asylum.  If  taking  care  of  three  children 
would  have  lost  Emile  to  the  world,  then  I  would  ten  thou- 
sand times  rather  have  Rousseau  do  exactly  as  he  did.  So, 
let  us  hear  no  more  adverse  criticism  about  this  great  man. 
Let  us  rather  mingle  an  infinite  compassion  for  him  along 
with  the  undying  gratitude  that  he  has  earned  from  us  all. 

Looking  from  my  own  angle,  I  see  in  present  day  edu- 

2— Au«.   21 


18  THE    CUBTAIN   DRAWN 

cation  ' '  but  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  dream ;  ignorance  of  a 
density  unequalled ;  of  an  obstinacy  unparalleled ' '.  And  it 
is  all  traceable  to  the  doors  of  our  educational  philosophers. 
About  those  philosophers,  what  Plato  said  four  centuries 
before  Christ,  might  well  be  said  today :  ' '  Shall  we  conmiit 
any  fault  then  if  we  call  these  people  philodoxical  rather 
than  philosophical,  that  is  to  say,  lovers  of  opinion  rather 
than  lovers  of  wisdom?"^  Truly,  if  to  love  opinion  and 
superficiality  is  to  be  philodoxical,  then  twentieth  century 
educators  are  among  the  most  philodoxical  that  ever  trod 
the  earth.  They  are  also  entitled  to  another  well  earned 
compliment  from  the  pen  of  Plato:  *'We  cannot  avoid 
adopting  the  belief  that  the  real  nature  of  education  is  at 
variance  with  the  account  given  of  it  by  certain  of  its  pro- 
fessors, who  pretend,  I  believe,  to  infuse  into  the  mind  a 
knowledge  of  which  it  was  destitute,  just  as  sight  might  be 
instilled  into  blinded  eyes. '  '^ 

Like  Plato,  in  speaking  of  professors,  I  shall  name  none 
in  this  connection.  Education  is  too  massive  a  subject  to 
permit  of  anything  but  principles.  I  w^ould  simply  chal- 
lenge the  present  educational  world  to  name  one  profound 
educational  thought  that  its  coterie  has  ever  uttered.  If  I 
wanted  to  I  could  name,  say,  fifty  men  who  stand  high  in 
the  educational  world  today.  They  are  leaders  in  educa- 
tional, thought.  They  stand  out  as  gods  in  State  and  Na- 
tional councils.  But  never  yet  have  I  ever  heard  anything 
said  in  any  educational  council  that  was  entitled  to  live  for 
fifteen  seconds — that  is,  from  the  standpoint  of  things  that 
are  fundamental  in  education.  Educational  councils  every- 
where are  dreary  desert  wastes  of  sage  brush  and  alkali. 
Even  educators  themselves  are  coming  to  feel  it.  No  one  ex- 
pects anything  there  any  more — and  those  who  do  are  dis- 
appointed. The  educational  council  has  become  simply  some 
place  to  go.  Such  councils  enable  one  to  get  out  of  his  own 
backyard  once  or  twice  a  year,  but  that  is  about  all. 

2  Plato's  Republic,  196.  Davies  &  Vaughn  Trans.,  1914,  Mac- 
millan  &  Co. 

3  Ibid.,  240-1. 


THE    CURTAIN    DRAWN  19 

Let  anyone  take  the  addresses  made  and  the  papers  read 
at  educational  associations — and  he  will  seek  in  vain  for  any 
spark  of  originality,  for  any  charm  of  language,  for  any 
nugget  of  wisdom,  for  any  breath  of  inspiration.  On  more 
than  one  occasion  have  I  camped  faithfully  on  the  trail  of 
some  educational  leader  whose  initial  words  promised  hope, 
only  to  find  in  the  end  that  his  bow  of  promise  dissolved  into 
nothingness — that  he  really  had  nothing  to  say.  That  is 
true  of  educational  leaders  in  general  when  it  comes  right 
down  to  things  that  are  bed-rock.  Their  greatest  stock  in 
trade  is  to  make  much  ado  about  comparatively  insignificant 
things  that  have  been  booted  around  the  world  like  an  old 
football  for  centuries.  In  line  with  that  propensity  is  their 
remarkable  capacity  for  generalities — the  glittering  kind 
with  which  the  world  has  been  pestered  since  the  beginning 
of  time.  Parallel  with  that  capacity  is  their  ravenous  avid- 
ity for  words.  Well  might  Goethe  have  written  the  follow- 
ing in  Faust  after  having  attended  the  typical  educational 
association : 

"The  best  thing  that  the  case  affords 
Is— stick  to  some  doctor's  words: 
Maintain  the  doctrines  out  and  out, 
Admit  no  qualifying  doubt; 
But  stick  to  words,  at  any  rate: 
Their  magic  makes  the  temple  gate 
Of  certainty  fly  safely  ope; 
Words,  words  alone,  are  your  best  hope". 

Now,  to  be  sure,  I  readily  admit  that  in  secondary  and 
tertiary  fields  we  have  educators  today  who  are  entitled  to 
every  credit — and  were  I  dealing  with  such  fields — or  did 
education  consist  of  a  mere  house  of  cards  built  upon  the 
sands — I  would  extend  to  them  that  credit.  But  education 
must  not  be  suffered  to  become  anything  of  the  kind.  There- 
fore I  am  not  here  to  praise  trifles. 

I  take  it  that  if  a  great  conflagration  is  raging  under  the 
force  and  impetus  of  heavy  winds,  the  thing  for  the  fire  de- 
partment to  do  is  to  direct  every  gallon  of  water  where  it 
should  be  directed — onto  the  source  of  the  fire  and  onto  the 


20  THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN 

points  of  greatest  danger.  I  wonder  if  I  am  right?  But 
those  same  fire  fighters  may  shoot  the  whole  Atlantic  ocean 
into  that  conflagration,  and  it  will  do  not  one  iota  of  good — 
providing  the  water  is  shot  through  the  tops  of  the  flames. 
The  point  is,  that  the  water,  to  be  of  any  service,  must  in 
some  way  come  into  actual  contact  with  the  foundations  of 
the  fire.  Fighting  the  tongues  of  flames  that  have  leaped 
skyward  a  thousand  feet,  amounts  to  nothing.  One's  most 
frantic  efforts  thus  directed  can  spell  but  one  thing — folly. 
The  inapplicable,  even  to  the  point  of  infinitude,  can  never 
utter  the  slightest  response  in  any  field — for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  it  lacks  the  essential  condition  of  contact  with 
cause. 

Again,  we  pay  but  little  attention  to  a  burning  ax  handle 
in  the  backyard  while  human  beings  are  calling  for  help 
from  the  tenth  story.  No  one  cares  a  copper  about  the  color 
of  a  man's  necktie  while  he  is  engraving  his  name  on  the 
highest  tablets  of  undying  heroism.  No — a  thousand  times 
— no !  We  simply  refuse  to  become  excited  over  toys  and  in- 
cidentals, no  matter  how  valuable  and  necessary  they  may 
be  in  their  appropriate  places,  while  the  appealing  voice  of 
mankind  is  calling  out.  The  point  is,  that  every  single  thing 
in  life  must  rest  absolutely  on  its  own  degree  of  worth — on 
its  own  pedestal — ^and  stay  where  it  belongs.  Nothing  must 
be  permitted  to  use  any  other  bridge  than  itself.  I  can  con- 
ceive of  no  greater  final  injustice  or  calamity  than  for  some 
comparatively  puny  and  relatively  insignificant  truth 
usurping  the  throne  of  some  other  truth  that  is  a  thousand 
times  more  vital.  Let  us  have  no  vain-glorious  truths, 
therefore,  parading  around  among  mankind  where  they  do 
not  belong.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  that  very  principle  that  I 
refuse  to  become  excited  over  any  of  the  prevailing  major 
movements  in  present  day  education — and  over  which  lead- 
ers are  so  frantically  fussing,  and  so  profusely  perspiring. 

Bear  in  mind,  therefore,  that  my  complaint  against  edu- 
cation is  not  against  this  or  that  detail — but  against  central 
facts.  The  school  simply  has  not  diagnosed  her  sickness 
deeply  enough.     The  educational  world  must  take  off  its 


THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN  21 

blinders.  No  plaster  can  possibly  antidote  deep  seated 
ulcers.  Nature  is  entirely  too  old  and  too  wise  to  be  fooled 
by  any  physician,  however  sincere,  whose  conduct  does  not 
suit  the  case.  Even  the  slightest  unseen  splinter  in  one's 
finger  testifies  to  that  fact.  The  law  of  Cause  and  Effect 
is  not  so  easily  repealed  as  some  woul,d  think.  It  is  a  good 
deal  like  the  fox  that  had  one  hundred  tricks  in  the  fable. 
He  had  boasted  to  the  cat  of  his  cleverness.  Just  then  a 
pack  of  hounds  came  up.  But  the  fox  very  soon  exhausted 
his  hundred  tricks  by  running  and  jumping  and  turning 
and  twisting  and  dodging.  Then  the  hounds  went  promptly 
to  work  and  performed  trick — number  one  hundred  one. 
In  due  time  the  cat  went  to  work  and  executed  its  single 
trick,  which  was  simply  to  climb  to  the  topmost  branch  of 
the  nearest  tree.  *'Ah,"  said  the  cat,  ''I  see  that  one  good 
trick  is  worth  far  more  than  one  hundred  poor  ones"! 

And  so  it  is  with  our  educators.  They  are  running  hither 
and  thither.  The  cat  in  the  fable  knew  from  the  beginning 
the  value  of  one  good  trick.  But  our  educational  leaders  en- 
tertain the  fox  view  of  things.  Consequently  their  house  is 
of  cards.  Their  legerdemain  is  crude.  The  forces  of  life 
are  closing  in  upon  them  from  every  possible  direction  in 
the  Universe.  One  new  trick  on  their  part  demands  ten 
more  new  ones  in  order  to  block  and  checkmate  the  funda- 
mental principles  that  the  original  trick  overlooked.  The 
process  thus  goes  on  at  an  alarming  geometrical  rate.  Every- 
thing develops  into  but  an  infinite  complexity.  That  com- 
plexity must  finally  do  one  of  two  things — either  fall  under 
its  own  weight  and  fallacy,  or  else  crush  humanity.  At  the 
present  hour  the  latter  alternative  is  going  on. 

And  this  brings  me  partially  to  the  source  of  some  of  my 
convictions.  It  first  happened  yonder  on  the  prairies  of 
the  west.  It  was  in  the  fields  between  the  green  corn  rows — 
or  herding  the  cattle  on  the  plains — or  driving  the  mowing 
machine  in  the  meadows.  My  first  convictions  were  intoned 
in  field,  furrow  and  woodland.  As  a  boy  in  the  old  Virgil 
school  I  often  used  to  feel  that  our  education  is  wrong.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  the  educated  person  was  just  about  the 


22  THE    CUETAIN   DRAWN 

same  life  victim  as  the  uneducated — physically,  mentally 
and  morally.  In  a  physical  way  and  a  mental  way,  I  saw 
both  classes  the  same  victims  of  the  same  disease,  and  just 
as  subject  to  various  other  disturbances — while  along  the 
line  of  moral  conduct,  again  I  could  see  no  difference.  Of 
course,  my  observations  were  not  scientific,  or  anything  like 
it — perhaps.  They  were  simply  boyhood  impressions. 
Nevertheless,  they  were  positive  convictions.  They  left  me 
with  the  definite  thought  that  when  education  got  through 
with  a  person  he  was  still  a  pronounced  victim  to  the  world 
— a  master  in  no  real,  essential  way — and  even  worse  off 
possibly  in  some  respects  than  he  might  have  been  had  he 
never  had  the  **  advantages "  of  education  at  all. 

And  now  as  the  years  have  gone  by,  and  as  I  have  passed 
from  the  country  school  and  on  into  some  of  our  leading 
universities,  making  a  careful  study  of  the  educational 
philosophies  of  the  world,  the  while  studying  life  as  it  is 
actually  lived — my  early  boyhood  convictions  have  become 
matters  of  knowledge.  I  see  in  education  today  a  cup  so 
full  of  error  that  it  must  spill  under  even  the  steadiest  hand. 
Truly  is  it  hard  to  carry  a  full  cup.  In  a  shipwreck,  most 
people  cling  to  the  first  thing  that  they  can  grab.  Some 
cling  to  spars — ^masts — riggings.  Others  cling  to  barrels 
and  casks.  But  the  pilot  is  the  one  person  that  knows.  I 
say  that  education  today  is  a  shipwreck.  Its  leaders  are 
grabbing  at  everything  from  riggings  to  casks — from  barrels 
to  masts.  But  there  has  been  no  pilot  to  grab  the  one  thing 
that  is  right.  Thus  far  education  has  been  unsane.  It  has 
been  dwelling  among  the  tombs.  And  humanity  has  been 
calling  and  crying.  Education  has  answered.  But  that 
answer  has  been  in  terms  of  error,  bookishness,  and  super- 
ficiality— in  terms  of  unrecognized  principle.  It  has  simply 
been  education  in  Q^gy.  The  tree  of  knowledge  has  been 
hardly  more  than  a  mirage  in  the  desert.  The  educational 
world  would  prune  that  tree  to  make  it  perfect.  But  it  is 
useless  to  prune  branches  from  a  tree  whose  fruit  is  insidi- 
ous poison.  The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  lay  the  ax  to  its  roots. 
My  word  to  the  educational  world  is  just  this:   Even  its 


THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN  23 

theoiy  is  not  good.  Fully  carried  out,  it  would  still  be  a 
rank  and  inglorious  failure. 

"When  Demetrius  Poliorcetes  inquired  of  Stilpo,  the 
Magarian,  after  his  losses  by  the  plunder  of  Megara,  he 
gave  for  answer  that  he  had  seen  no  one  carrying  off  his 
knowledge.  When  reminded  of  the  immoral  life  of  his 
daughter,  he  rejoined  that  if  he  could  not  bring  honor  on 
her,  neither  could  she  bring  disgrace  on  him. '  '*  To  the  first 
of  these  propositions  it  is  in  order  for  me  to  say  that  while  I 
have  seen  pupils  and  students  carting  away  report  cards 
and  diplomas  by  the  thousands,  I  have  seen  but  very  few 
carrying  away  any  fundamental  conceptions  of  education. 
With  reference  to  Stilpo 's  second  answer,  in  my  opinion  the 
educational  world  is  not  entitled  to  the  exemption  enjoyed 
by  Stilpo.  Education  per  se  has  no  honor.  Its  only  honor 
must  ever  lie  in  what  it  actually  does  for  its  pupils  in  terms 
of  assembling  and  assimilating  the  basic  principles  of  life. 
Further  than  this,  the  only  thing  that  education  can  ever  do 
to  disgrace  itself  is  the  monumental  human  misery  that  may 
obtain  in  this  world.  By  its  fruits  must  education  ever  be 
known — the  same  as  any  other  tree.  The  measure  of  its 
honor  and  the  measure  of  its  disgrace  must  always  be 
that  thermometer  which  registers  the  amount  of  joy  and 
justice  which  does  or  does  not  obtain  among  mankind. 
Across  the  great  trade  routes  of  human  experience,  there 
must  be  no  such  word  for  education  as  alibi. 

In  my  opinion,  there  is  no  language  anywhere  that  is 
capable  of  expressing  the  sacred  responsibility  of  education. 
Nowhere  else  in  all  the  world  is  such  a  responsibility  to  be 
found.  No  sins  under  all  heaven  are  so  fundamental  as  the 
sins  of  education.  Overt,  objective  sins  are  easy  to  see. 
Sins  of  the  flesh,  for  example,  are  never  slow  in  coming  to 
the  light.  But  educational  sins  are  not  discoverable  on  the 
moment  of  the  sinning — far  from  it !  Educational  sins  lie 
deep.  When  the  watchman  wakes'  up,  the  perpetrators  are 
in  a  far  off  country.    And  the  escape  has  been  made  by 

*  Socrates  and  the  Socratic  Schools,  3rd  German  Edition:  Eduard 
Zeller;  English  Trans,  by  O.  J.  Reichel,  page  277. 


24  THE    CUETAIN   DKAWN 

wave.  No  tracks  have  been  left  by  which,  to  trace  the  tra- 
ducer.  Such  sins  are  subtle.  They  kill  at  long  range.  They 
are  the  most  dangerous  of  all  sins.  And  the  powder  that 
education  employs  in  the  process  is  both  smokeless  and 
noiseless.  A  sinner  of  that  type  is  hard  to  detect,  and  al- 
most impossible  to  catch. 

It  is  through  such  a  long-range  procedure  that  educa- 
tion has  constructed  for  us  many  of  the  gilded  hells  of  life 
— ^where  mankind  writhes  in  misery  and  dies  like  flies.  But 
worse  than  that,  like  the  rainbow  of  old,  the  only  promise 
in  the  educational  sky  today  is  a  set  of  phenomena  that  ig- 
nore every  basic  principle  of  reflection  and  refraction. 
Faith  in  such  a  bow  of  promise  far  transcends  the  mustard 
seed  measure  that  moves  mountains.  But  in  spite  of  that 
fact,  the  people  have  great  faith  in  their  leaders,  no  matter 
how  short-sighted  their  educational  doctrines  may  be.  The 
people  actually  depend  on  their  leaders.  In  reality,  they 
must  do  so — for,  to  the  lay  world,  life  is  always  exceed- 
ingly busy  in  its  own  respective  spheres,  even  when  life 
conditions  are  the  very  best.  Under  false  circumstances 
life  is  always  trebly  busied  by  endeavoring  to  conform  it- 
self to  a  series  of  manifold  errors.  Humanity  then  becomes 
stampeded  in  the  hopeless  process  of  either  trying  to  escape 
something  or  else  trying  to  make  needless  and  impossible 
adjustments.  Such  a  condition  means  sailing  life's  cur- 
rents in  a  scuttled  boat,  and  without  oars.  It  means  word- 
ing with  broken  levers,  or  with  none  at  all.  With  wagons 
hitched  to  false  stars,  it  is  no  wonder  that  poverty,  disease, 
crime  and  misery  have  taken  possession  of  the  world. 
There  is  simply  a  limit  to  human  endurance.  It  oftentimes 
looks  to  me  as  though  our  educators  have  been  sounding  for 
that  limit. 

To  be  sure,  I  admit  that  education  is  in  part  a  function 
of  the  people.  But  that  is  no  excuse  for  those  of  our  edu- 
cational leaders  who  would  pose  as  our  individual  and  so- 
cial saviours.  It  is  the  exclusive  business  of  leaders — not  to 
lead,  but  to  be  wm^thij  of  leading.  The  burden  of  false 
educational  doctrines  must  not  be  shifted  over  onto  the 


THE    CURTAIN   DRAWN  25 

blame  and  the  backs  of  the  people.  But  a  lame  excuse 
never  knows  which  leg  to  limp  on.  Consequently,  our  edu- 
cators will  squirm  with  even  the  shadow  of  an  opportunity. 
But  it  will  do  them  no  good.  They  and  they  alone  are  to 
blame  for  their  outrageously  narrow  vision  and  their  corre- 
spondingly constricted  views.  We  hear  a  great  deal  these 
days  about  the  divine  right  of  liberty.  But  the  thing  that 
is  really  operating  is  the  divine  right  of  ignorance  in  the 
field  of  education. 

Nor  do  I  reserve  for  my  use  or  fortification  in  this 
connection  the  fact  that  from  time  to  time  our  education 
has  been  severely  criticized  by  the  lay  public  generally,  in- 
cluding many  attacks  in  the  press.  Those  who  criticize 
usually  do  not  know  why.  They  oppose  as  a  rule,  not  be- 
cause they  know  what  is  wrong,  but  because  they  feel  that 
something  must  be  w^rong  somewhere.  No  age  fully  under- 
stands itself — and  rarely  does  any  critic  fully  comprehend 
the  issues  in  hand.  Consequently,  the  critic  may  largely 
or  even  totally  miss  the  mark  that  should  be  hit.  Correct 
diagnosis  and  correct  therapeutics  are  one.  But  there  is  a 
vast  difference  between  knowing  that  something  is  wrong, 
and  what  is  wrong.  The  overwhelming  majority  of  critics 
in  the  field  of  education  never  get  beyond  the  first  stage. 
Most  criticism  that  wells  up  from  a  suffering  humanity  is 
but  the  voice  of  John  the  Baptist — 

"An  infant  crying  in  the  night. 
An  infant  ciying  for  the  light, 
And  with  no  language  but  a  crj^!" 

Casting  the  critical  eye  over  the  pages  of  history,  one 
might  at  first  be  tempted  to  the  conclusion  that  as  a  rule 
man  does  not  care  to  improve.  But  that  is  not  the  case. 
The  real  fact  is,  that  mankind  has  been  afflicted  v>dth  false 
leaders.  Our  leaders  have  been  slow,  lazy,  inert.  Above 
all,  they  have  been  unimpassioned  in  the  cause  of  truth. 
They  have  helped  to  make  of  civilization  a  loafer.  Most 
ages  have  been  drowsier  than  the  proverbial  house  dog. 
Nothing  was  ever  more  hesitant  than  the  boasted  march 


26  •  THE    CUETAIN   DRAWN 

of  civilization.  Ages  upon  ages  have  drifted  down  to 
us  from  the  remotest  antiquity,  and  yet  the  golden  dream 
of  a  golden  dawn  nowhere  gilds  the  skies  of  human 
thought. 

The  universal  disease  today  is  somnambulism.  The  world 
is  walking  in  its  sleep.  Indeed,  civilization  seems  to  be  a 
sleeping  sickness.  The  awful  facts  that  confront  us  are 
ignorance  and  inertia.  They  endure  in  the  human  mind 
like  granite.  Old  ideas  remain  steadfastly  where  they 
were  cradled.  Solemn  fancies  of  honest  but  simple-minded 
leadership  and  its  trailing  clientel  abound  everywhere — 
which  is  not  at  all  strange  when  we  consider  the  depth  and 
soundness  of  intellectual  sleep. 

Though  twenty-three  centuries  have  rolled  away  since 
the  voice  of  the  great  Socrates  sounded  in  the  streets  of 
Athens  by  the  sea — education  is  still  being  given  the  cup  of 
hemlock.  Though  in  the  lengthening  shadows  of  that  same 
day  Plato  wrote  his  marvelous  Kepublic  and  Laws,  still  sits 
the  Sphinx  among  us.  And  though  nineteen  centuries 
have  stolen  past  since  Jesus  uttered  that  profound  message 
to  humanity,  ''Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free" — the  night  of  ignorance  still  enslaves  man- 
kind. The  highways  of  humanity  are  still  the  false  ways 
of  unending  darkness.  Today,  after  twenty-three  centuries, 
the  educational  world  is  divided  between  two  conflicting 
thoughts — it  understands  neither  itself  nor  the  outside 
world.  Vulgar  learning  abounds  at  every  point  of  the 
compass.  By  vulgar  learning  I  mean  learned  nonsense — 
that  learning  which  is  neither  fundamental  to  nor  com- 
prehensive of  life — ^that  learning  which  deals  with  efficiency 
in  superficial  things,  to  the  blind  neglect  of  things  that  are 
elemental  and  final.  Vulgar  learning  always  deals  with 
decorations. — ^never  with  desiderata.  Its  great  specialty 
is  chimneys — up  tinkering  with  sky-lights.  Such  common 
things  as  foundations  are  utterly  foreign  to  that  rare 
brand  of  culture  which  I  call  vulgar  learning. 

And  so  I  say  that  the  great  re-energizing  waves  of 
Socrates,  Plato  and  Jesus  faltered  and  wavered,  halted  and 


THE    CUETAIN   DRAWN  27 

fell  back.  Education  has  been  but  a  piece  of  lost  baggage 
in  the  centuries — for  even  the  longest  wave  is  quickly  lost 
in  the  sea.  History  has  thus  come  down  to  us  out  of  the 
darkness  of  night.  And  the  miles  have  been  long.  The 
sun  of  every  century  has  gone  down  upon  forsaken  quar- 
ries— down  upon  the  incomplete  and  deserted  efforts  of 
builders  that  left  them  where  they  last  labored.  Far  too 
often  the  deserted  workshops  of  those  builders  have  never 
been  touched  since.  In  many  notable  instances  those  work- 
shops have  been  obliterated  from  human  vision  by  the 
drifting  sands  of  intellectual  folly  down  through  the  cen- 
turies. No  human  trace  of  them  remains.  Were  Plato  to 
return  today  he  would  find  the  tool^  of  his  craft  where  he 
left  them.  No  one  has  used  them  since — though  many  have 
chattered  his  name.  Nor  could  any  inhabitant — not  even 
the  oldest — point  out  to  Plato  the  site  of  his  old  quarry. 
Nor  could  a  single  scattered  gem  that  he  once  polished  in 
that  quarry  anywhere  be  found  in  the  length  and  breadth 
of  the  educational  pa\\Tishops  today.  Plato  might  as  well 
prospect  the  waves  of  the  sea  as  to  attempt  to  locate  what 
was  once  his  old  Athenian  world.  He  would  find  no  func- 
tioning compass  anywhere  that  could  help  him. 

But  there  is  a  future.  The  medium  of  historical  trans- 
mission is  not  always  to  be  darkness.  We  are  also  told 
that  the  greatest  darkness  is  before  the  dawn.  The  very 
hope  of  the  world  lies  in  a  rise  in  education — ^not  as  a  mere 
current,  but  as  a  mighty  tidal  movement,  a  huge  ground 
swell.  What  we  need  is  a  central  sun — a  flaming  source 
in  a  flaming  orbit.  Education  must  become  the  focus  of 
the  world.  And  when  that  focus  is  right,  then  will  the 
golden  age  dawn.  Then  will  the  human  soul  be  taken  out 
of  the  breadline.  Then  will  the  golden  hour  of  history 
strike.  And  then  will  begin  the  most  glorious  march 
across  the  centuries  ever  conceived  by  man.  *'Eye  hath 
not  seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the 
heart  of  man  to  conceive  the  things  possible'' — under  a 
sane  education. 

What  the  world  is  languishing  for  today  is  sub-struc- 


28  THE    CUETAIN   DRAWN 

tion  in  education.  We  need  a  snn-like  centrality.  Plato 
apprehended  the  central  facts.  So  did  Jesus.  And  so  in  a 
tremendous  measure  did  Shakespeare.  Such  an  education 
will  be  void  of  varnish  and  falsehood.  It  will  be  an  edu- 
cation that  cannot  be  weighed  on  the  village  scales.  The 
human  soul  will  be  its  balance  and  its  rod. 

Let  us  be  candid.  Let  us  be  honest.  We  must  think — 
not  once  or  twice  per  year,  but  every  minute  of  life.  The 
facuUy  of  nonsense  has  held  forth  too  long — in  which  it  has 
simply  been  true  to  the  instinct  never  to  think.  Zoology 
teaches  us  that  the  flying  apparatus  of  the  ostrich  is  in 
ruins.  Common  observation  would  leave  any  unprejudiced 
onlooker  to  conclude  that  human  reason  is  also  in  ruins. 
All  told,  Darwin  tells  us  that  there  are  about  eighty  ves- 
tigial organs  in  the  human  body.  An  outsider  would  sur- 
mise that  most  of  the  eighty  are  in  the  human  brain.  The 
normal  human  cranium  is  never  less  than  about  fifty-five 
cubic  inches.  The  brain  of  the  largest  gorilla  is  never  more 
than  about  thirty-five  cubic  inches.  As  someone  else  has 
said,  I  also  should  like  to  get  man  to  use  the  extra  twenty 
cubic  inches. 

Nor  have  I  started  the  controversy  herein  contained.  It 
was  started  by  a  false  educational  world  the  moment  that 
they  cast  down  a  false  educational  ideal.  The  invitation 
has  been  a  standing  one  for  centuries.  I  merely  accept  the 
challenge.  To  me,  that  means  a  challenge  to  disillusion  the 
world — for  the  history  of  all  growth  has  been  a  history  of 
disillusionment.  Wliere  there  is  no  disillusionment,  there 
is  no  growth — and  of  that  disillusionizing  the  world  has  had 
far  too  little.  Long  therefore  has  the  atmosphere  been 
fetid.  Long  has  the  hut  been  closed.  We  must  open  the 
doors  and  the  windows — and  let  in  the  breezes  from  the 
hills.  Our  scene  must  shift.  The  things  which  once  even 
very  imperfectly  satisfied  the  human  heart  and  the  human 
intellect  now  fail  utterly.  Our  educational  and  religious 
formulas  are  dark  enigmas  from  the  womb  of  the  past.  They 
neither  convince  nor  motivate  us.  Never  full  size  in  any 
single  particular,  we  have  completely  outgrown  them  in 


THE    CUETAIX   DRAWN  29 

every  dimension.  We  turn  from  them  as  from  husks.  They 
are  forsaken,  even  as  toys  in  toyland.  Our  shrine  is  but 
as  '*a  reed  shaken  in  the  wind". 

To  me  the  awful  fact  today  is — that  man  is  at  the  stake. 
The  barometer  should  indicate  that  storm  center  to  even  the 
blind.  Always  and  ever  it  has  been  the  supremacy  of  ig- 
norance versus  truth.  The  tide  must  turn.  The  stream  of 
history  must  be  diverted  from  its  ol.d  channel.  We  must 
have  a  new  spirit — a  truth-seeking  spirit.  We  must  chart 
the  plan  of  a  radically  new  and  rational  destiny.  The  new 
structure  that  we  build  must  be  on  a  world's  diameter.  The 
measuring  rod  of  antiquity  must  pass  away — the  Tower  of 
Babel — ''A  tower  whose  top  may  reach  into  the  heavens". 
Our  conceptions  of  the  magnitude  of  the  Universe  must  be 
infinitely  vaster  than  that — or  any  other  babble.  Our  new 
education  must  have  a  firmament  of  infinity  for  its  roof. 
We  must  plot  our  curves  to  infinity — and  then  plot  them 
back  again,  whatever  course  they  may  take.  And  in  the 
process  we  must  hurry — ^with  a  serious  care — for  the  day  is 
far  gone.  Not  only  must  we  take  time  by  the  forelock — ^we 
must  occasionally  grab  it  by  the  beard. 

Let  us  hope  that  a  new  day  is  about  to  dawn — and  that 
the  wreckage  and  ruin  that  has  been  cast  up  by  the  tides 
is  at  last  to  be  cleared  away.  The  symphony  of  time  has 
long  stood  watch  by  the  cisterns  of  the  sea — awaiting  a  voice 
to  still,  the  waves.    But  dreary  indeed  has  been  the  vigil. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   GREAT   QUESTION 
AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER 

What  is  the  greatest  question  that  can  he  raised  in  the 
entire  field  of  education  today  f 

How  strange  this  question  sounds — because  no  one  has 
ever  asked  it  before  I  Upon  this  soil,  education  has  never 
yet  set  foot.    So  I  ask  the  question  again. 

Some  will  at  once  complain  that  the  question  is  a  very- 
difficult  one  to  answer.  Such  a  complaint  will  come  from 
those  who  haven't  even  the  slightest  idea  what  the  correct 
answer  is. 

Others  will  say  that  the  answer  depends  on    ...    . 

My  reply  is,  that  it  depends  on  absolutely  nothing 
whatever.  There  is  but  one  answer  to  my  question — and 
that  is  the  correct  one.  No  qualifications  or  conditions  of 
any  kind  whatsoever  can  in  any  way  impose  themselves. 

Still  others  will  ask  me  what  I  mean  by  my  question. 

My  response  to  that  reaction  is,  that  my  question  is 
worded  in  plain  English — and  that  I  mean  exactly  what 
the  question  asks.  To  the  person,  therefore,  who  may  be 
mystified  as  to  my  ** meaning,''  I  can  only  say:  Go  hack 
and  read  the  question  once  more. 

Then  there  will  be  those  who  will  respond  that  the 
answer  to  my  question  today  would  not  be  the  same  as  it 
would  be  five  years  ago,  or  a  hundred  years  ago,  or  some 
other  time. 

Very  well — I  accept  the  challenge.  What  was  the  great- 
est question  that  could  be  asked  in  education  in  the  year 
1914?  In  the  year  1419?  What  would  be  the  greatest 
question  when  the  Prince  of  Pedagogues  labored  among 
the  Judean  hills  ?    During  the  days  of  Socrates,  Plato  and 

30 


AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  31 

Aristotle?  Or,  to  the  person  who  may  have  choice  bits  of 
insight  across  the  footlights  of  the  great  stage  of  history — 
him  will  I  let  pick  his  own  period  of  history — and  then 
to  that  person  will  I  put  this  inquiry :  What  is  the  greatest 
question  that  can  he  raised  in  all  education  f 

Once  more  I  am  compelled  to  reply :  One  date  or  a  mil- 
lion dates — it  is  all  the  same.  It  makes  no  difference. 
There  can  be  but  one  answer  to  the  question.  All  other 
answers  would  be  wrong.  Therefore,  let  us  go  straight 
back  to  the  inquiry  in  its  original  form :  What  is  the  great- 
est question  that  can  he  raised  in  the  entire  field  of  edu- 
cation today? 

Now  for  some  years  I  have  been  quietly  asking  this 
question  of  students  of  education — including  public  school 
teachers  as  well  as  students  and  teachers  in  normal  school 
and  university  circles.  That  is  how  it  comes  that  I  know 
how  the  educational  world  reacts  to  the  question  under 
consideration.  Then,  too,  I  have  read  educational  liter- 
ature, past  and  present — and  there  is  absent  from  those 
pages  the  slightest  reference  of  any  kind  to  the  question 
above  propounded.  That  is  why  I  said  in  the  beginning 
that  upon  this  soil,  education  has  never  yet  set  foot. 

With  respect  to  this  very  thought,  education  is  sleeping. 
It  is  submerged  in  a  profound  slumber.  My  question 
catches  the  educational  world  napping.  Therefore,  when 
I  ask  my  question,  it  is  one  in  deep,  distant  dreams  that  is 
being  addressed.  The  first  reaction  is  a  rubbing  of  eyes. 
Then  there  is  a  slow  awakening.  Finally  the  aroused 
sleeper  is  surprised — astounded — shocked — at  such  a  ques- 
tion. Educational  consciousness  is  taken  by  storm.  The 
question  is  a  thunderbolt  out  of  a  clear  sky — because  it 
had  never  before  in  all  the  world  occurred  to  education 
that  there  was  or  could  be  such  a  thing  in  its  field  as  the 
one  higgest  question.  Big  questions — yes,  to  be  sure,  edu- 
cation had  often  discussed  them — but  when  it  came  to  their 
higgest  question — when  it  came  to  centering  out  and  making 
some  specific  designation — and  then  labeling  that  designa- 
tion— and  then  clamping  that  designation  down  into  the 


32  THE   GREAT   QUESTION 

very  pin  point  of  focal  consciousness — indeed,  that  is  a 
very  different  matter.  That  is  the  one  thing  that  edu- 
cation has  never  done.  It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that 
education  is  at  first  dazed  at  the  unexpectedness  and  the 
unusualness  of  this  question. 

However,  every  sleeper  that  I  have  ever  thus  far  ad- 
dressed finally  establishes  some  degree  of  equilibrium.  Then, 
after  certain  preliminary  parleying,  and  after  being  driven 
into  the  comer  for  a  specific  answer  of  some  kind,  the  typi- 
cal person  will  respond  with  what  in  his  opinion  is  the 
biggest  question  in  education  today.  As  a  rule  all  of  those 
answers  can  be  classified  under  about  ten  general,  headings. 
Those  answers  I  label  the  answers  of  the  world.  They  con- 
stitute what  is  in  educational  consciousness  along  this  line 
after  consciousness  is  once  aroused.  I  purpose  to  give  the 
answers  which  I  have  gathered  from  the  lips  of  current 
education. 

One  class  tells  me  that  undoubtedly  the  greatest  ques- 
tion in  education  today  would  have  to  do  with  the  junior 
high  school.  In  their  opinion  there  is  nothing  so  important 
today  as  the  perfecting  of  the  junior  high  school  idea.  Their 
major  arguments  are,  that  the  junior  high  school  form  of 
organization  keeps  pupils  in  school  longer ;  that  the  end  of 
the  sixth  year  is  a  more  natural,  division  point  than  the  end 
of  the  eighth,  as  far  as  the  development  and  interests  of 
youth  are  concerned;  and  that  better  opportunity  is  thus 
afforded  for  election  in  studies,  for  departmental  teaching, 
and  for  correlation  between  the  elementary  school  and  the 
high  school — and  so  on.  Such  would  be  the  answer  of  the 
junior  high  school  enthusiasts. 

But  I  am  compelled  to  object  to  the  answer — ^not  that  I 
am  in  any  way  ''unalterably  opposed"  to  the  junior  high 
school,  but  simply  because  it  doesn't  make  much  difference 
one  way  or  the  other.  At  best,  the  junior  high  school  idea 
is  chimney  stuff.  It  is  not  foundation  material  at  all.  Its 
current  glorification  is  not  at  all  warranted.  Education  by 
the  8-4  plan  is  a  failure— but  make  it  6-6— or  6-3-3— or  9-3 
— or  12-0 — and  by  some  magical  process  the  world  will  be 


AND  THE  WORLD'S  ANSWER  33 

saved !  I  have  oftentimes  wondered  why  some  enterprising 
educational  genius  has  not  thought  of  establishing  a  ' '  6-0-6 ' ' 
plan !  At  any  rate,  to  listen  to  some  of  the  fine  spun  argu- 
ments brought  forth  in  behalf  of  the  junior  high  school  is 
worth  far  more  than  a  day  spent  at  any  circus.  I  have 
attended  both  performances — and  I  know. 

However,  I  am  not  completely  condemning  the  idea.  I 
do  say,  though,  that  the  junior  high  school  is  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  devices  ever  invented  for  the  adulting  of  child- 
hood and  youth.  It  is  indeed  amazing  to  me  that  educators 
are  overlooking  this  fact — that  of  throwing  seventh  and 
eighth  grade  pupils  into  the  environment  of  regular  high 
school  pupils.  I  say  that  these  two  groups  of  pupils  are 
entirely  unlike.  Their  stages  of  development,  both  socially 
and  biologically,  are  different — and  on  this  basis  alone,  I 
say  that  the  end  of  the  sixth  year  is  overwhelmingly  out 
of  order  as  a  dividing  line  between  the  elementary  school 
and  the  high  school — that  is,  providing  that  the  junior  high 
school  organization  and  administration  are  such  as  to  throw 
pupils  of  that  age  into  school  association  of  any  kind  what- 
soever with  the  regular  high  school.  I  say  that  any  such  an 
association  is  a  serious  mistake — for  it  is  dangerous.  Where 
it  obtains,  the  aping  process  starts  in  immediately.  The  con- 
duct of  the  grade  pupils  becomes  bolder  and  more  mature, 
for  they  are  thrown  into  a  new  world  where  they  do  not 
belong.  Their  heads  ''are  turned."  Application  becomes 
much  less  serious.  Discipline  becomes  lax — or  at  least  more 
difficult.  School  life  becomes  pretty  much  of  a  ''lark.'* 
The  healthful  morale  of  the  w^hole  school  suffers.  The  regu- 
lar high  school  pupils  themselves  reflect  a  less  wholesome 
spirit,  for  they  quickly  detect  the  change  in  stability  and 
homogeneity  of  their  high  school  the  moment  that  seventh 
and  eighth  grade  pupils  are  throw^l  in  among  them.  The 
plane  of  social  relations  becomes  lowered — for  the  grade 
pupils  rush  headlong  into  social  notions  beyond  their  years 
— while  the  high  school,  pupils  go  down  to  meet  them — till, 
all  in  all,  I  pronounce  the  junior  high  school  idea  an  unde- 
sirable social  undertaking,  unless  administered  in  separate 
building^. 


34  THE   GEEAT   QUESTION 

But  aside  from  the  social  phase  of  the  junior  high  school, 
there  is  also  a  limit  to  the  advisability  of  departmental 
teaching.  I  would  reduce  departmental  teaching  to  an  abso- 
lute minimum  in  all  the  grades — and  save  for  such  special 
subjects  as  music  and  drawing  I  would  not  permit  depart- 
mental teaching  at  all  in  the  first  six  grades — and  wherever 
possible  the  same  plan  should  be  followed  in  grades  seven 
and  eight — for  the  more  teachers  any  group  of  pupils  have 
during  the  day,  the  more  lax  and  the  more  disorderly  will 
those  pupils  become — because  no  singl,e  teacher  is  respon- 
sible for  either  their  discipline  or  their  growth — all  such 
responsibility  becomes  divided — and  the  more  that  respon- 
sibility becomes  dispersed,  the  less  responsibility  both  teach- 
ers and  pupils  feel — aside  from  the  fact  that  the  applica- 
tion and  discipline  of  any  group  of  pupils  will  always  tend 
to  degenerate  to  the  average  level  of  their  very  poorest 
teachers. 

And  in  this  connection  I  want  to  say  that  I  am  surprised 
at  the  manner  in  which  the  educational  world  has  been 
hypnotized  by  the  ' '  Gary  plan. ' '  Even  Dewey^  would  make 
much  of  that  system,  which  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the 
junior  high  school  idea  gone  completely  wild.  There  depart- 
mental teaching  is  carried  clear  down  to  the  kindergarten 
— I  speak  as  I  saw  things  during  March,  1917.  Primary 
pupils  were  being  handled  and  drifted  about  from  room  to 
room  and  from  teacher  to  teacher  exactly  like  high  school 
pupils.  Like  a  set  of  wandering  little  Arabs — without  a 
teacher  and  without  a  home — such  is  the  correct  charac- 
terization of  the  grade  pupils  of  the  Gary  schools — espe- 
cially in  the  Emerson  building,  where  pupils  are  exclusively 
housed  from  the  day  that  they  enter  the  kindergarten  until 
they  are  graduated  from  the  high  school.  Dewey  would 
make  much  of  this  plan  of  housing — but  in  my  opinion,  it 
is  vicious.  It  is  my  hope  that  the  schools  of  tomorrow  will 
not  be  dedicated  to  any  such  a  serious  mistake — for  the 
one-unit  school  building  is  a  most  glaring  violation  of  every 


5  John  Dewej:  Schools  of  Tomorrow. 


AND  THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  35 

fundamental  of  child  nature.  High  school  pupils  belong 
absolutely  by  themselves  in  their  own  separate  building.  It 
is  an  educational  crime  to  house  them  with  grade  pupils — • 
and  above  all,  it  is  a  most  unpardonable  educational  mis- 
take to  carry  on  with  departmental  teaching  as  it  obtains  in 
the  Gary  schools,  which  Mr.  Dewey  and  others  have  so  un- 
fortunately eulogized. 

It  is  especially  unfortunate,  it  seems  to  me,  that  in  the 
recent  Gary  Survey  made  by  Abraham  Flexner  and  Frank 
P.  Bachman  of  the  General  Education  Board,  no  mention 
is  made  of  the  principles  which  I  herewith  raise.  So  far 
from  making  any  such  mention,  they  actually  place  their 
stamp  of  approval  on  the  Gary  plan  by  pronouncing  it 
''orignal  and  ingenious."  Their  words  of  conclusion  are:* 
* '  The  upshot  of  our  consideration  of  the  Gary  organization 
may  be  put  into  a  few  words.  The  Gary  plan  is  as  large  and 
intelligent  a  conception  as  has  yet  been  reached  in  respect 
to  the  scope  and  bearing  of  public  education.  The  adminis- 
trative scheme  by  which  Gary  undertakes  to  carry  out  the 
plan  is  ingenious  to  the  point  of  originality.  The  arrange- 
ments for  controlling  and  supervising  the  operation  of  the 
scheme,  are,  however,  defective;  there  is,  therefore,  reason 
to  fear  that  the  execution  of  the  plan  will  fall  short  of  the 
conception ' '. 

But  I  say  that  the  plan  itself  is  not  good.  In  fact,  it 
is  defective  and  destructive.  It  violates  every  basic  prin- 
ciple of  child  life  in  two  distinct  respects — first,  its  perfectly 
wreck],ess  extent  of  departmental  teaching  in  the  grades — 
and,  second,  its  housing  of  pupils  of  all  ages  under  one  roof. 
I  say  that  such  a  plan  of  organization  and  administration  is 
sheer  educational  nonsense — nothing  could  be  ranker — and, 
further,  that  such  a  plan  is  not  even  entitled  to  be  well 
supervised — and,  further  still,  that  even  if  ''the  arrange- 
ments for  controlling  and  supervising  the  scheme ' '  were  the 
very  best,  the  ''scheme"  would  still  be  a  real  menace  to 
education.    I  say  that  the  Gary  Survey  overlooks  quite  com- 

6  Copied  from  School  Life,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education,  vol.  1, 
No.  10,  p.  1,  Dec.  16,  1918. 


36  THE   GEEAT  QUESTION 

pletely  the  place  where  the  shoe  actually  pinches  down  at 
Gary. 

However,  this  is  no  attempt  to  analyze  in  any  detail 
either  the  junior  high  school  idea  or  the  Gary  schools.  My 
aim  is  merely  to  point  out  that  there  is  grave  danger  in 
mixing  up  pupils  of  all  ages  in  one  building.  Specifically, 
I  do  not  believe  that  seventh  and  eighth  grade  pupils  should 
in  any  way  whatsoever  be  thrown  into  the  environment  of 
our  senior  high  schools,  for  reasons  already  stated — and 
neither  do  I  believe  that  the  former  pupils  should  be  sub- 
jected to  nearly  so  much  departmental  teaching  as  the  latter. 
My  fundamental  aim  in  this  connection,  however,  is  simply 
to  take  issue  with  those  who  would  so  glorify  the  junior 
high  school  as  being  the  nucleus  of  the  most  important 
question  that  one  might  raise  in  the  field  of  education  today. 
I  say  that  it  is  not.  Nor  would  it  be,  even  in  the  absence  of 
the  specific  objections  that  I  have  advanced.  I  would  still 
insist  that  the  junior  high  school  would  not  amount  to  very 
much  one  way  or  the  other.  If  it  were  not  for  the  adulting 
process  involved  I  would  not  care  a  copper  whether  a  pupil 
went  to  a  school  on  the  8-4  plan,  or  to  one  on  the  6-6  plan. 
I  simply  feel  that  the  advocates  of  the  junior  high  school 
are  magnifying  it  utterly  beyond  its  just  deserts.  However, 
say  that  they  are  not,  I  would  yet  insist  that  this  new  idea 
in  American  education  is  hardly  more  than  tertiary  ma- 
terial. Let  us  therefore  rule  it  completely  out — for  it  is 
totally  unqualified  to  occupy  educational  position  number 
one  in  our  Hall  of  Fame. 

This  clears  the  stage  then  for  the  world 's  second  answer 
to  my  question.  That  answer  is  to  the  effect  that  the  great- 
est single  field  in  education  today  has  to  do  with  ''tests'' 
and  ' '  measurements. ' '  The  educators  who  give  this  answer 
would  rate  the  evaluating  of  school  attainments  as  the  most 
important  thing  in  all  education.  Their  main  argument  is, 
that  what  we  are  doing  in  education  must  be  measured  in 
an  accurate  and  scientific  manner.  By  ''testing"  achieve- 
ments in  arithmetic,  history,  grammar,  spelling,  writing, 
and  other  subjects,  this  group  of  educators  would  cure  our 
most  fundamental  educational  ailments. 


AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  37 

But  once  more  I  would  have  to  object  to  the  world's 
answer.  The  weakness  in  that  answer  lies  in  the  very  mis- 
taken notion  that  it  takes  for  granted  that  our  schools  are 
on  the  right  track,  if  we  can  only  get  things  measured.  It 
has  never  once  occurred  to  those  advocates  that  possibly 
the  things  being  measured  may  not  be  worth  measuring. 
That  thought  has  never  yet  dawned  upon  the  "measure- 
ment" people.  Under  such  a  scheme  of  things  the  criterion 
of  advancement  pretty  largely  becomes  what  effect  the 
child  has  on  the  curriculum — and  not  what  effect  the  curric- 
ulum is  having  on  the  child.  Indeed,  under  such  a  con- 
ception, it  is  no  wonder  that  until  quite  recently  the  whole 
school  world  has  gone  to  weeds  and  gone  to  seed  on  the 
subject  of  trying  to  measure  how  fast  the  child  is  ''eating 
up  alive ' '  everything  from  writing  to  arithmetic. 

And  yet  I  hasten  to  say  that  I  am  by  no  means  an  oppo- 
nent of  the  measurement  idea.  My  one  criticism  is,  that 
education  has  gone  beyond  all  reasonable  limits  in  its  faith 
in — in  its  claims  for — and  in  its  application  of — measure- 
ments of  all  kinds.  The  educational  world  today  is  already 
waking  up  to  the  truth  of  that  assertion,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  there  still  exist  those  advocates  who  are  more  enthusi- 
astic over  measurements  than  anything  else  in  education. 
We  would  all  have  to  admit,  of  course,  that  kept  within 
rational  limits,  measurements  are  capable  of  rendering  a 
certain  service  to  education.  But  when  that  is  said,  then 
the  story  of  measurements  is  pretty  well  told.  Under  no 
circumstances,  in  my  opinion,  is  this  particular  field  entitled 
to  be  called  the  biggest  question  in  education — or  anything 
like  it.  In  other  words,  measurements  are  not  worthy  by 
any  means  of  occupying  the  seat  of  honor  in  our  Hall  of 
Fame.  Let  us  dismiss  it,  and  pass  to  the  world's  third 
answer. 

The  substance  of  this  answer  is,  that  the  most  important 
thing  in  education  is  the  preparation  of  the  teacher.  The 
champions  of  this  answer  would  make  pedagogical  refine- 
ment their  watchword.  They  would  insist  on  better  pre- 
pared teachers.    Some  would  require  every  teacher  in  our 


38  THE   GEEAT   QUESTION 

schools  to  be  either  a  normal  school  graduate  or  a  university 
graduate — or  both.  In  every  case  they  would  designate  a 
certain  number  of  required  units  in  the  theory  and  practice 
of  education. 

To  quite  an  extent  I  would  be  in  hearty  sympathy  with 
this  class  of  advocates.  It  must  be  admitted  that  we  have 
far  too  few  thoroughly  trained  teachers  in  our  schools.  Most 
teachers  in  our  schools  are  not  of  the  first  order  at  all.  No 
one  would  perhaps  deny  that  fact.  Indeed,  in  the  sense  of 
universal  and  adequate  preparation  we  have  no  teaching 
profession  at  all.  Nor  do  we  begin  to  possess  facilities  suf- 
ficient to  train  the  150,000  new  teachers  that  we  need  every 
year.  One  would  have  to  admit,  therefore,  that  the  need 
for  better  prepared  teachers,  and  the  facilities  for  the  car- 
rying out  of  that  preparation,  are  very  great  from  every 
standpoint.  It  is  undoubtedly  an  issue  of  very  great  impor- 
tance— and  far  more  fundamental  in  every  way  perhaps 
than  the  two  answers  thus  far  considered  and  discarded. 

But  here  my  admissions  would  have  to  end.  I  could 
never  admit  the  preparation  of  teachers  as  the  greatest 
question  that  could  be  raised  in  education  today,  consider- 
ing our  present  plane  of  educational  consciousness — because 
in  the  absence  of  a  far  greater  question  it  is  an  absolute 
certainty  that  no  teacher  would  ever  be  the  most  properly 
trained,  regardless  of  how  available  normal  schools  and 
universities  might  be.  In  proof  of  this  I  want  to  quote  on 
the  general  subject  of  what  the  educational  world  considers 
necessary  in  the  preparation  of  teachers :  * '  First,  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  branches  to  be  taught  ".^  "  It  is  plain  that 
the  very  first  requisite  of  the  teacher  is  a  competent  knowl- 
edge of  the  subjects."® 

Those  comments  represent  very  fairly  what  education 
today  believes  to  be  the  thing  of  first  importance  in  the  pre- 
paring of  teachers.  But  the  educational  world  is  wrong. 
The  first  requisite  is  not  knowledge  of  subjects.  That  is  why 
trained  teachers  today  are  in  reality  not  trained.    It  is  also 

7  Putnam :  Manual  of  Pedagogics,  page  254. 

s  Ibid.,  page  256.     Quotation  from  W.  H.  Payne. 


AKD  THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  39 

why  it  will  ever  be  impossible  to  make  the  preparation  of 
teachers  point  one  in  education — until  stock  time  as  we 
know  what  preparation  onght  to  consist  of.  Merely  to  pre- 
pare a  teacher  amounts  to  but  little  comparatively,  after  once 
knowing  the  what  of  our  case.  Let  us  therefore  determine 
first  of  all  what  to  prepare  in — and  that  ''first"  is  certainly 
not  *'a  competent  knowledge  of  subjects".  I  say  that  we 
must  raise  a  question  far  more  fundamental  than  that — the 
preparation  idea.  Consequently,  with  all  its  importance, 
we  must  rule  out  preparation — for  it  has  no  first  right  to 
the  great  throne  in  our  temple  of  education. 

We  now  come  to  the  world 's  fourth  answer,  namely,  the 
contention  that  the  field  of  administration  and  supervision 
is  the  most  important  thing  in  education  today.  There  can 
of  course  never  be  any  doubt  of  the  tremendous  importance 
of  this  field.  Nor  can  anyone  doubt  the  fact  that  the  ad- 
ministrative and  supervisory  side  of  education  is  at  the 
present  time  far  from  what  it  should  be.  Probably,  on  the 
whole,  the  rank  and  file  of  educators  in  this  field  are  in- 
ferior to  the  actual  teaching  force.  Administration  would 
probably  deny  this.  Teachers  would  undoubtedly  admit  it. 
But  unbiased  and  competent  observers  would  line  up  with 
the  teachers. 

But  the  real  question  is  this,  namely :  Is  administration 
the  most  important  question  that  could  be  raised  in  present- 
day  education?  We  are  speaking,  not  at  all  about  impor- 
tant things — nor  indeed  about  things.  We  are  speaking 
about  one  thing — and  that  the  most  important  thing  that 
we  can  locate  in  education.  We  must  not  lose  sight  of  this 
fact  for  a  minute.  On  such  a  basis,  where  does  the  ques- 
tion of  administration  stand?  Personally,  I  could  never 
consent  to  give  it  first  place.  Just  where  it  should  rank 
numerically^  I  am  unable  to  say.  I  do  know,  however,  that 
education  affords  one  question  which  is  infinitely  greater 
than  administration  ever  can  be.  Consequently,  adminis- 
tration, with  all  its  importance,  must  be  content  to  take  a 
back  seat  somewhere.  It  does  not  measure  up  to  the  size 
of  the  ponderous  chair  that  is  to  occupy  the  center  of  our 


40  THE    GKEAT   QUESTION 

colossal  stage.  This  then  eliminates  administration  as  an 
available  answer  to  the  question  that  was  raised  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  chapter. 

But  other  claimants  for  the  honor  are  waiting.  Answer 
number  five  tells  us  that  the  question  of  finance  is  the  most 
important  of  all.  The  argument  is,  that  teachers  are  notori- 
ously underpaid — and  that  because  of  this  fact  teachers  are 
poorly  prepared — that  the  tenure  of  office  is  shorter — that 
the  best  teachers  leave  the  profession — and  that  in  the  be- 
ginning the  best  talent  is  not  attracted  to  the  profession 
at  all — all  of  which  must  result  in  keeping  down  the  stand- 
ard of  education.  The  argument  is  also  offered,  that,  since 
wealth  is  not  equall}^  distributed  in  different  sections  of  the 
country,  all  children  do  not  have  equal  opportunities  for 
securing  the  same  amount  and  the  same  quality  of  school- 
ing. The  combined  argument  is,  that  teachers'  salaries 
should  be  very  greatly  increased,  and  that  certain  poor  dis- 
tricts or  sections  should  receive  financial  support  and  en- 
couragement from  some  larger  unit  of  administration  that 
is  more  able  to  pay. 

Now,  from  a  fiscal  standpoint,  education  has  long  suf- 
fered very  greatly  indeed.  In  fact  one  is  pained  to  think 
that  public  consciousness  should  so  long  treat  its  teachers — 
the  worthiest  profession  known  to  mankind — ^as  a  set  of 
beggars.  There  is  perhaps  no  greater  or  longer  continued 
shame  in  all  history  than  the  insignificant  pittance  that 
society  has  been  paying  for  the  education  of  its  children. 
I  want  to  say  boldly  that  teachers'  salaries  should  be  in- 
creased fifty  per  cent.  Not  only  this,  but  the  country  over 
each  teacher  is  teaching  on  an  average  about  twice  as  many 
pupils  as  sound  education  demands.  The  prevailing  aver- 
age in  our  grade  schools  today  is  not  far  from  forty  pupils 
per  teacher.  That  average  should  be  cut  squarely  in  two. 
Our  ideal  should  be  that  no  teacher  ever  have  more  than 
twenty  pupils.  This  in  turn  means  that  society  has  only 
about  half  as  many  school  buildings  as  it  should  have — and 
half  as  much  equipment- — and,  above  all,  only  about  half  as 
many  teachers  as  it  should  have.    Our  aggregate  conclusion 


AND   THE   WORLD'S  ANSWER  41 

must  be,  therefore,  that  society  is  paying  for  education 
2/3  times  1/2  times  1/2  of  what  it  really  should  be  paying 
— or  1/6 !  That  is  to  say,  where  education  now  invests  one 
dollar  in  education — it  should  be  investing  six  dollars !  But 
I  hereby  serve  notice  on  society  that  the  day  is  not  far  off 
when  education  is  going  to  be  right  fiscally — and  that  when 
that  day  comes  teachers  will  be  adequately  paid — we  shall 
have  twice  as  many  school  buildings — twice  as  much  equip- 
ment— and  only  one-half  as  many  pupils  per  teacher  as  at 
the  present  day — and,  in  addition,  every  pupil  in  even  the 
poorest  section  of  the  United  States  shall  have  educational 
opportunities  equal  to  those  enjoyed  by  pupils  in  other  sec- 
tions of  the  country — and  again  I  repeat  that  when  that 
day  really  comes  society  will  be  paying  about  six  times  as 
much  for  its  education  as  it  is  today — and  the  funds  there- 
for shall  come  from  what  a  criminal  spendthrift  world  is 
now  squandering  in  its  bestially  drunken  orgy  of  war  and 
more  war! 

I  have  now  granted  every  argument  concerning  the  great 
importance  of  the  fiscal  demands  of  education.  No  one, 
therefore,  can  accuse  me  of  not  being  in  the  heartiest  sym- 
pathy with  those  educators  who  would  champion  the  ques- 
tion of  finance  as  the  greatest  question  that  could  be  raised 
in  education  today.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  my  unanimous  ac- 
cord with  the  money  side  of  education,  duty  compels  me 
to  say  that  the  bulFs  eye  of  education  can  never  be  hit  by 
even  the  most  perfect  financial  aim.  Indeed,  education 
might  well  be  fiscally  perfect,  and  yet  rank  and  inglorious 
in  every  fundamental  respect.  The  greatest  issue  in  all 
education  cannot  possibly  focus  in  finance.  A  bigger  ques- 
tion by  far  must  be  raised — a  question  so  much  bigger  that 
the  question  of  finance  will  be  dwarfed  by  comparison. 
Therefore,  with  extreme  reluctance  must  we  wave  the  fiscal 
question  aside.  In  the  great  educational  temple  it  takes 
an  immortal  of  the  very  first  order  to  occupy  the  honored 
throne  that  has  been  reserved  for  the  eyes  of  all  the  world 
when  the  last  curtain  shall  have  been  drawn  aside.  Con- 
sequently we  pass  on  to  examine  into  the  merits  of  answer 
number  six. 


42  THE   GKEAT   QUESTION 

Here  the  friends  of  rural  education  greet  us.  They 
assure  us  that  the  question  of  rural  school  reform  is  the 
biggest  question  that  can  be  found  in  the  whole  field  of 
education.  Among  other  things  they  tell  us  that  the  con- 
solidated school  is  an  absolute  and  immediate  necessity  all 
over  the  country — and  that  the  curriculum  of  the  rural 
school  needs  to  be  completely  revolutionized.  The  great 
need  of  scientific  insight  in  agriculture  and  household  man- 
agement are  pointed  out.  The  extreme  lack  of  social  op- 
portunities  in  rural  regions  are  also  emphasized — and 
accordingly  the  corresponding  demand  for  community  cen- 
ter opportunities  of  some  kind.  Then,  too,  we  are  informed 
of  the  fact  that  ambitious  rural  youth  are  leaving  the 
farms  so  rapidly  that  city  life  is  becoming  more  and  more 
congested  every  year,  all  resulting  in  the  general  lowering 
of  rural  ability  and  rural  leadership.  These  and  many 
other  arguments  of  the  highest  order  of  truth  are  advanced 
— and  all  born  of  the  fact  that  thus  far  rural  education 
has  been  totally  inadequte  to  meet  the  many  problems  of 
farm  life. 

Now,  that  the  question  of  immediate  and  radical  reform 
in  rural  education  is  an  issue  of  solemn  and  tremendous 
importance,  no  sane  person  could  possibly  think  of  deny- 
ing, or  even  questioning.  I  admit  in  letter  and  in  spirit 
the  great  truth  of  the  call  for  reform  of  a  most  pronounced 
type  in  our  country  schools.  But  in  spite  of  all  that — once 
more  I  am  compelled  to  be  stubborn.  Great  as  is  the  ques- 
tion of  rural  school  improvement,  I  simply  cannot  give  to  it 
first  place  in  education — because  that  question  does  not 
measure  up  to  the  demands  of  a  really  great  question — for, 
bear  in  mind — remember  that  our  question  must  be  a 
colossal  one.  It  must  tower  above  all  others  like  a  giant. 
Hence,  the  best  that  we  can  do  under  the  circumstances, 
is  simply  to  seat  the  rural  question  some  place  on  our  stage 
where  it  can  get  just  as  good  a  view  of  the  giant  as  pos- 
sible when  the  final  roll  call  shall  have  been  sounded.  We 
move  on,  therefore,  to  inquire  into  the  world's  seventh, 
answer  to  our  question. 


AKD    THE    WORLD'S   ANSWER  43 

Here  we  engage  in  conversation  those  advocates  who 
insist  that  the  curriculum  itself  must  ever  be  made  point 
one  in  education.  They  argue  that  curricula  everywhere 
need  to  be  radically  changed — in  all  schools,  elementary, 
secondary  and  higher.  Their  fundamental  argument  is, 
that  the  real  value  of  schools  depends  primarily  on  what 
it  is  that  is  being  taught  therein.  But  with  the  same  breath 
they  point  out  that  our  educational  institutions  are  loaded 
down  with  a  great  deal  of  useless  and  traditional  ballast — 
and  that  that  ballast  should  be  thrown  out  at  once.  Their 
watchword  would  be  to  teach  only  what  is  useful  and 
practical.  Different  advocates  would  of  course  throw  out 
different  things — but  all  would  simplify.  Between  all  the 
advocates  of  this  class,  the  housecleaning  would  be  a  royal 
one  from  every  standpoint.  Some  would  throw  out  algebra 
and  geometry.  Others  would  throw  out  French,  German, 
Latin  and  Greek.  Still  others  would  throw  out  two-thirds  of 
arithmetic  and  three-thirds  of  grammar — and  so  on — till, 
everything  considered,  the  fight  in  this  field  would  be  a 
merry  one. 

However  that  may  be,  and  regardless  of  any  details  that 
might  enter  into  the  question,  every  competent  critic  would 
unquestionably  say:  Reform  the  curriculum.  Everyone 
would  have  to  admit  that  the  question  is  an  important  one. 
But  our  real  inquiry  is,  whether  or  not  curriculum  reform  is 
the  biggest  question  that  can  be  raised  in  the  field  of  edu- 
cation today.  My  reaction  is,  that  it  is  not — in  spite  of  the 
very  great  improvement  that  lies  ahead  for  education  in 
proportion  to  the  degree  that  it  makes  its  curricula  right. 
The  best  that  I  can  do  is  to  admit  that  the  reformation  of 
our  educational  curricula  is  of  the  most  tremendous  relative 
importance.  I  can  go  no  further  than  that.  At  the  pres- 
ent time  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  give  to  the  curriculum 
position  number  one.  Consequently  our  massive  arm  chair 
is  still  empty.  Candidate  number  seven  is  unworthy  to  fill 
it.    Let  us  therefore  inspect  the  world's  eighth  answer. 

The  substance  of  this  answer  is,  that  the  bringing  of  the 
high  school  to  every  boy  and  every  girl  in  the  land  is  the 


44  THE    GREAT    QUESTION 

greatest  question  that  can  be  raised  in  education  today. 
Those  who  advance  this  answer  would  extend  the  compul- 
sory school  age  to  at  least  eighteen  years.  The  argument 
would  be  that  the  high  school  must  be  made  the  minimum 
educational  essential  for  every  American — that  an  elemen- 
tary school  education  is  inadequate — and  furthermore,  that 
for  the  great  bulk  of  our  population  the  high  school  must 
become  "the  people's  college."  It  would  be  pointed  out 
that  in  a  democracy — in  a  republic  like  our  own — safety, 
politically,  socially  and  industrially,  demands  that  every 
boy  and  every  girl  be  assured  at  least  a  high  school  educa- 
tion. The  great  fact  would  be  emphasized  that  the  over- 
whelming majority  of  our  boys  and  our  girls  are  dropping 
down  and  out  of  school  life  entirely  too  young — mere  chil- 
dren who  become  but  industrial  and  social  driftwood,  and 
who  for  the  most  part  add  each  year  to  the  world's  popula- 
tion of  incompetents  and  non-thinkers. 

And  what  is  there  in  those  arguments?  Indeed,  there 
is  very  much.  In  my  opinion  the  demand  is  right.  Our 
high  school  must  reach  everybody.  The  sooner  our  compul- 
sory school  age  can  be  increased  in  this  country  to  at  least 
eighteen  years,  the  better  it  will  be  for  education  and  for 
the  country  as  a  whole  from  every  possible  angle.  Society 
would  be  vastly  the  gainer  thereby.  But  the  individual 
would  be  even  more  so.  Outside  of  the  immediate  imprac- 
ticability of  carrying  the  plan  into  effect,  there  can  be  no 
single  argument  that  could  be  possibly  raised  that  could  be 
advanced  in  opposition  to  the  idea.  It  is  my  hope  that  the 
day  is  not  far  off  when  every  single  pupil  who  enters  grade 
one  of  our  schools  will  be  a  guarantee  that  that  same  pupil 
will  later  on  be  graduated  from  grade  twelve. 

But  what  is  the  weight  of  this  high  school  question  when 
placed  in  the  same  scales  in  which  we  have  been  weighing 
all  other  questions  thus  far  considered?  Is  it  to  take  the 
magical  place  of  first  position  in  all  the  field  of  education  ? 
If  I  am  reading  the  scales  aright,  it  will  not.  It  is  simply  a 
very,  very  heavy  question — ^but  it  is  not  the  heaviest  ques- 
tion that  can  be  raised— and  that  was  the  understanding 


AND   THE   WOELD'S   ANSWER  45 

in  the  beginning — that  we  were  to  make  search  for  the 
most  important  of  all  questions  in  education.  "With  all  due 
credit  to  the  high  school  question,  our  position  of  honor  be- 
longs to  another  question — one  that  is  yet  to  be-  asked.  Our 
Hall  of  Fame  still  looks  anxiously  for  the  one  immortal 
that  can  satisfy  it  and  measure  up  to  its  requirements. 
With  another  measure  of  reluctance,  therefore,  are  we 
forced  to  proceed  to  an  examination  of  the  world's  ninth 
answer. 

This  answer  was  born  during  the  last  five  years.  It  is 
the  result  of  the  great  world  war.  Reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms,  this  answer  is  embodied  in  the  one  word — Ameri- 
canization, Unquestionably  a  large  majority  of  our  educa- 
tors today  would  make  the  Americanizing  process  the  most 
important  single  question  before  our  schools.  By  that  proc- 
ess is  meant  the  making  of  real  American  citizens  out  of — 
not  only  all  foreigners  in  this  country — but  also  out  of  many 
so-called  Americans.  As  a  minimum  in  that  process  there 
would  be  involved  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  English 
language,  an  effective  appreciation  of  the  spirit  and  mean- 
ing of  American  ideals,  and  a  participative  familiarity  with 
the  principles  of  American  government.  It  would  be  a  com- 
bined program  of  national  patriotism  and  civic  enlighten- 
ment— all  carried  on  through  the  agency  of  schools  of  every 
kind — public  and  private — and  of  every  grade — elemen- 
tary, secondary  and  higher — day  schools — ^night  schools — 
continuation  schools. 

Now,  most  emphatically,  the  Americanization  ideal  is  a 
good  one.  In  fact  it  is  most  imperative  that  w^ithout  fur- 
ther delay  America  become  a  country  of  one  language,  one 
citizenship,  one  flag.  Our  own  national  safety  demands 
that  as  a  minimum  requirement.  But  we  doubly  require 
that  set  of  conditions  providing  that  we  are  going  to  live  up 
to  our  bestowed  and  chosen  christening — that  of  being 
the  melting  pot  of  the  world.  To  live  up  to  that  name  de- 
mands that  the  fires  under  the  melting  pot  be  vigorously 
kindled  anew — and  be  kept  burning  from  a  source  that  can 
never  die  out — or  even  flicker  low,  as  indeed  we  have  care- 


46  THE   GREAT  QUESTION 

lessly  and  shamelessly  permitted  them  to  do  thus  far. 
Furthermore,  educators  generally  have  accepted  the  prob- 
lem of  Americanization  as  one  which  falls  very  largely 
within  the  province  of  the  public  school — for  all  over  the 
country  during  the  past  few  years  this  question  has  taken 
precedence  over  all  other  questions  that  have  been  con- 
sidered by  educational  associations,  county,  state,  and 
national.  There  can  be  no  question,  therefore,  of  the  una- 
nimity with  which  many  educators  at  this  particular  hour 
regard  Americanization  as  the  biggest  single  thing  in  edu- 
cation. 

Well,  is  this  very  question  then  the  magical  answer  to 
the  inquiry  which  has  been  before  us  ever  since  the  first 
word  of  the  present  chapter?  Have  we,  after  all,  raised 
the  greatest  possible  question  within  the  domains  of  edu- 
cation? Is  it  possible  that,  after  having  travelled  so  cir- 
cuitously,  and  after  having  weighed  in  the  balance  and  re- 
jected eight  different  questions — is  it  possible  now  that  the 
world's  answer  number  nine  is  to  be  crowned  as  the  one 
candidate  that  meets  every  requirement  of  our  research? 
In  a  word,  is  Americanization  ' '  the  noblest  Roman  of  them 
all?'' 

Now,  possibly  nothing  in  the  world  would  be  more  popu- 
lar than  for  me  to  say  yes.  But  I  am  not  going  to  say  it — 
for  my  search  is  for  truth,  and  not  for  popularity.  Already 
I  have  admitted  everything  for  Americanization  that  I  am 
going  to — or  that  it  is  entitled  to — so  that  no  person  should 
be  at  all  deceived  as  to  my  unqualified  approval  of  the  idea. 
But  right  there  I  stop — for,  be  it  remembered,  I  am  calling 
for  the  greatest  question  that  can  be  raised  in  the  field  of 
education — and,  personally,  I  am  positive  that  Americaniza- 
tion falls  short  of  the  stipulation  in  that  call.  Consequently, 
with  all  its  undoubted  greatness,  we  must  assign  the  world's 
ninth  answer  to  some  other  seat  than  the  one  which  we  have 
reserved  for  a  most  special  candidate.  This  means  that 
we  must  move  on  and  inspect  the  world's  tenth  answer — 
for  we  have  just  one  more  to  consider. 

The  representatives  of  this  class  are  considerably  in  the 


AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  47 

minority.  But  they  are  lacking  in  neither  vigor,  ardor  nor 
logic.  They  are  the  champions  of  child  study.  They  tell 
us  that  the  greatest  question  in  education  must  always  cen- 
ter about  the  nature  of  the  child.  The  burden  of  their 
argument  is,  that  any  educational  problem  that  does  not 
consult  the  interests  and  instincts  and  capacities  of  child- 
hood, is  pre-eminently  on  the  wrong  track,  regardless  of 
what  the  problem  might  be. 

It  is  my  firm  opinion  that  the  child  study  advocates  have 
a  remarkably  strong  case — in  fact  by  far  the  best  case  thus 
far  presented.  But  with  monotonous  regularity,  I  once 
more — object — because  I  am  out  with  microscopes  and  tele- 
scopes in  search  of  the  biggest  of  all  educational  questions. 
I  think  that  I  should  be  willing  to  grant  to  child  study 
position  number  two — but  never  number  one,  for  a  greater 
question  than  that  can  be  raised.  This  means  that  our 
original  question  still  remains  unanswered. 

But  this  does  not  mean  at  all  that  our  labors  thus  far 
have  been  in  vain.  It  merely  means  that  we  have  w^eighed  in 
the  balance  the  world's  ten  great  answers — and  that  they 
have  been  found  wanting.  A  few  other  scattering  answers 
might  be  included  and  considered,  but  they  lack  the  support 
of  both  logic  and  numbers — and  so  I  leave  them  out.  It 
should  be  especially  emphasized  also  that  in  my  examination 
of  the  ten  answers  above  rejected,  no  attempt  whatever  has 
been  made  to  analyze  any  of  them  in  detail.  My  aim  has 
been  simply  to  introduce  them  as  so  many  major  answers 
from  the  world — and  then  after  a  few  words  thereon  setting 
forth  my  own  personal  views  with  regard  to  their  respective 
importance,  to  dismiss  them  as  possibilities  for  first  place, 
regardless  of  how  great  the  degree  of  that  importance  might 
be  in  the  case  of  any  single  one  of  them.  In  no  case  am  I 
belittling  the  actual  import  of  any  one  of  the  ten  rejected 
answers,  but  simply  saying  that  no  one  of  the  ten  answers 
fulfills  my  question. 

Still,  if  I  am  correct,  then  in  my  opinion,  the  educational 
world  is  entitled  to  blame — ^not  necessarily  for  being  un- 
able to  answer  my  question — ^but  for  having  been  caught 


48  THE   GREAT   QUESTION 

asleep  at  the  switch.  No  person  in  life  may  positively 
know  the  one  great  overtowering  Aetna  in  his  particular 
field — but  one  thing  is  sure,  and  that  is,  that  every  person 
should  at  least  be  conscious  of  the  fact  that  his  field  does 
contain  some  one  giant  mountain  peak,  whatever  it  may  be. 
He  should  at  least  be  dominated  and  engulfed  by  this  one 
thought,  namely:  What  is  the  most  important  single  thing 
in  my  field  of  endeavor  f  Such  a  person  will  have  an  answer 
to  that  question,  even  though  his  answer  may  be  wrong. 
But  the  answer  itself  will  not  necessarily  be  at  once  the 
element  of  first  importance.  Far  more  important  than  the 
answer  will  be  the  existence  in  consciousness  of  the  thought 
that  whatever  the  answer  may  be,  there  is  some  one  ele- 
ment that  is  undeniably  the  mighty  cornerstone  of  our  struc- 
ture. Such  a  thought  in  consciousness  is  indispensable  and 
invaluable — for  it  will  finally  lead  to  a  correct  answer — 
because  at  all  times  it  impels  and  motivates,  and  inspires 
one  to  deep  and  careful  perception. 

In  this  sense,  therefore,  possibly  the  greatest  question 
that  one  could  raise  in  any  field  would  be  exactly  that  ques- 
tion itself,  namely :  What  is  the  greatest  question  that  can 
be  raised  ?  Such  a  question  is  great — because  it  is  the  ques- 
tion that  taps  the  outer  consciousness  of  a  slumbering  world. 
It  is  the  key  that  unlocks  the  first  outer  gate  of  the  temple. 
In  the  absence  of  a  slumbering  world  the  question  would  of 
course  be  no  contribution  of  any  special  value.  But  with  a 
sleeping  humanity — with  an  educational  world  that  is  both 
drowsy  and  blase — and  yet  so  bold  as  glibly  to  take  so  often 
the  name  of  education  in  vain — with  such  a  general  state  of 
affairs,  the  question  must  be  of  monumental  import.  To 
such  a  world  of  somnambulists — many  of  whom  have  not  yet 
even  gotten  up  to  walk — the  question  asked  plays  the  part 
of  the  gong  which  is  sounded  to  summon  the  sleepers  back 
to  a  waking  world. 

But  let  us  waive  the  service  that  such  a  question  per- 
forms in  the  initial  process  of  awakening  mankind.  Let  us 
not  suffer  this  question  to  be  its  own  answer.  Let  us  pass 
on — and  locate  an  answer  that  satisfies  every  demand  of  the 


AND   THE   WOELD'S   ANSWEE  49 

question  before  us.  It  is  our  duty  and  mission  to  do  that. 
Therefore,  in  closing  this  chapter,  we  do  so  exactly  as  we 
began  it — by  propounding  the  question :  What  is  the  great- 
est question  that  can  he  asked  in  the  entire  field  of  edu- 
cation today? 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  GREAT   QUESTION 
AND  MY  OWN  ANSWER 

The  question  before  us  is  this:  What  is  the  greatest 
question  that  can  he  raised  in  the  entire  field  of  education 
today? 

In  the  preceding  chapter,  ten  answers  from  the  educa- 
tional world  were  considered — and  all  of  them  dismissed  as 
being  inadequate.  The  outstanding  fact  was,  that  the  pro- 
pounded question  caught  educators  in  a  deep  slumber,  as 
far  as  this  specific  question  is  concerned.  The  immediate 
result  was  one  of  shock.  Education  was  astounded  at  such 
a  question.  Finally,  however,  after  a  certain  degree  of 
awakening,  educators  lined  up  in  a  pell-mell  fashion  with 
their  replies.  But  their  answers  all  came  from  a  house  on 
fire.  Naturally  every  one  of  the  world 's  ten  answers  had  to 
be  rejected — not  that  many  of  those  answers  were  not  good 
ones,  but  for  the  reason  that  they  were  only  relatively  good. 

In  the  present  chapter  it  now  becomes  my  duty  to  state 
to  the  world  what  my  own  personal  answer  is  to  the  ques- 
tion under  consideration.  Accordingly  I  say  that  the  great- 
est question  that  can  be  raised  in  the  entire  field  of  education 
today  is  as  follows:  What  is  the  purpose  of  education? 

This  simple  question  of  six  words  will  at  first  undoubt- 
edly paralyze  our  educational  sages  with  astonishment.  I 
look  for  education  to  be  petrified  with  wonder  at  such  an 
answer — for  that  would  be  the  most  natural  reaction  of  any 
consciousness  that  has  gone  so  far  afield  as  education  has  at 
the  present  time.  In  fact,  education  has  wandered  so  far 
off  into  a  distant  country,  deserting  its  most  sacred  duties, 
that  this  is  about  what  education  will  first  say  to  the  ques- 
tion of  purpose^  namely:  *'I  know  thee  not;  thou  art  an 
insignificant  stranger  in  my  kingdom ;  get  thee  hence !  *  * 

50 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  51 

But  in  order  to  stagger  education  with  amazement  until 
it  finally  comes  out  of  its  state  of  stupor,  I  want  to  repeat 
that  under  all  heaven,  there  is  no  question  so  important  as 
that  of  purpose.  This  is  because  of  the  fact  that  in  any 
endeavor,  educational  or  otherwise,  the  purpose  indicates 
not  only  the  end  point  thereof,  but  also  the  starting  point — 
and  every  foot  of  procedure  lying  between  these  two  points. 
The  aim  of  education  therefore  becomes  education  in  its 
totality.  Whatever  our  aim  may  be,  it  is  the  one  theoretical 
determinant  of  our  goal;  the  exclusive  guarantee  of  what 
we  are  trying  to  do ;  the  exact  measure  of  the  kind  and  de- 
gree of  consciousness  that  we  are  investing  in  the  funda- 
mental conception  of  our  problem. 

The  aim  of  education — think  of  it!  If  the  question  of 
aim  or  purpose  is  not  burned  into  the  focus  of  consciousness, 
as  the  most  important  of  all  things,  then  what  is  it  that  we 
are  trying  to  do  ?  If  the  aim  of  education  is  not  crystallized 
into  the  very  pin  point  of  the  moment  at  all  times — then 
tell  me  just  exactly  what  it  is  that  you  are  trying  to  accom- 
plish in  "education."  In  the  absence  of  a  flaming,  incan- 
descent purpose,  what  vague  thing  is  that,  about  which  you 
so  glibly  talk  when  you  speak  of  the  ''educative  process"? 
What  do  you  mean  by  it — anyway  ?  Where  are  you  going  ? 
Do  you  know  the  specifically  exact  destination  toward  which 
you  are  headed — or  do  you  have  in  mind  any  destination? 
If  not,  then  what  is  your  general  direction  ? 

Let  me  remind  you  that  our  purpose  is  our  compass — 
the  one  thing  that  leads  to  the  magnetic  north  pole  of  at- 
tainment. Why,  even  the  simplest  ten-year-old  boy  aims 
at  something  when  he  shoots.  It  may  be  a  fence  post,  or  a 
barn  door — or  even  straight  out  into  the  middle  of  the  air. 
But  it  is  an  aim.  Else  why  should  the  boy  waste  his  am- 
munition unless  it  is  for  the  mere  joy  of  the  shooting  thrill? 
Even  the  boy  himself  knows  that  his  greatest  single  element 
of  success  is  his  aim.  If  he  merely  shoots,  he  hits  nothing — 
or,  worse  yet,  he  hits  what  he  should  not  hit — and  kills 
somebody — in  which  case  of  course  the  gun  ''was  not 
loaded".     The  guns  of  education  have  killed  their  millions 


52  THE   GEEAT   QUESTION 

in  this  manner — by  means  of  ''unloaded"  aimlessness. 

And  let  me  remind  the  educational  world  that  the  small 
boy  must  aim  every  time  that  he  shoots.  It  is  not  enough 
for  him  to  aim  today — and  then  just  "fire  away"  for  the 
rest  of  the  year.  He  must  always  aim.  Neither  is  it  suffi- 
cient for  the  boy  merely  to  know  that  there  is  a  little  projec- 
tion down  there  on  the  end  of  the  barrel,  called  the 
''sight."  Nor  is  it  enough  for  the  boy  to  know  what  that 
sight  is  for.  And  neither  is  it  again  sufficient  for  the  boy 
to  be  able  to  shut  his  left  eye  and  look  along  the  barrel  of 
his  rifle.  That  is  by  no  means  enough.  The  boy  must  also 
know  the  extreme  necessity  of  using  at  all  times  every  single 
element  entering  into  the  general  question  of  careful  aiming. 

And  the  educational  world  must  be  placed  on  exactly  the 
same  plane.  It  is  not  enough  for  education  finally  to  admit 
with  me  that  purpose  is  the  most  gigantic  question  in  our 
entire  field.  Nor  indeed  will  it  be  enough  for  education 
to  know  what  the  fundamental  purpose  of  its  labors  is. 
Such  things  in  themselves  are  not  at  all  a  satisfactory  con- 
summation of  our  task.  No  treatment  of  the  purpose  of 
education  can  at  all  be  accepted  which  at  the  same  time 
does  not  carry  with  it  a  consciousness  corresponding  to  the 
sacred  importance  of  that  purpose.  A  purpose  of  educa- 
tion which  is  merely  stored  away  in  some  attic  recess  of 
education  is  no  purpose  at  all.  An  educational  aim  must 
be  a  working  one.  If  it  is  encased  in  cobwebs,  then  it  is 
anything  but  an  aim.  At  best,  it  is  only  formal.  In  the 
long  run  it  would  be  a  guarantee  that  purpose  as  a  funda- 
mental intensity  and  as  an  eternal  index  finger,  is  anjrthing 
but  an  impelling  reality.  It  would  be  a  virtual  denial  that 
purpose  amounts  to  very  much. 

Shakespeare  has  said,  "Let  the  end  try  the  man" — also 
"The  end  crowns  all."  La  Fontaine  has  said  with  him, 
"We  ought  to  consider  the  end  in  everything."  Forget 
the  aim,  and  every  art  always  degenerates  into  mere  forms 
and  frivolities.  But  worse  than  that,  a  thousand  wrong 
directions  are  taken.  The  right  direction  is  never  taken — 
except  by  chance — and  we  all  know  what  that  means  where 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  53 

an  infinity  of  possibilities  are  involved.  I  would  point  it 
out  as  a  most  significant  fact  that  where  the  tremendous 
basic  seriousness  of  purpose  is  not  perceived,  a  set  of  vulgar 
and  trivial  aims  and  motives  always  plant  themselves  in  our 
way.  This  is  one  reason  why  educational  aims  today  are  so 
superficial,  so  subsidiary,  and  so  spurious.  They  are  the 
products  of  a  light,  hasty  reflection.  They  are  casual  and 
incidental.  No  perceptions  deep  and  prolonged  have 
brought  them  forth — because  the  titanic  massiveness  of  pur- 
pose in  education  has  never  weighed  heavily  upon  our  edu- 
cational leaders.  It  has  never  once  dawned  upon  them.  They 
would  settle  educational  aims  in  the  same  offhand  manner 
that  they  would  decide  on  some  flavor  at  a  soda  fountain. 
I  say  that  the  purpose  is  the  fundamental  object  of  any 
undertaking — and  that  that  fundamental  object  is  the  one 
thing  that  is  all-important.  Neither  is  mere  good  intention 
at  any  time  to  be  accepted  as  a  substitute  for  purpose.  In 
the  sacred  field  of  purpose,  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
substitutes — for  as  Lowell  says : 

"For  there^s  nothing  we  read  of  in  torture's  inventions, 
Like  a  well-meaning  dunce  with  the  best  of  intentions." 

It  is  far  from  being  enough,  therefore,  for  education 
merely  to  feel  well  disposed  toward  the  child — or  for  it 
to  say:  *'Our  purpose — our  purpose — why,  our  purpose  is 
to  give  the  child  a  good  education!"  Such  a  grand  en- 
circling movement  as  that  can  never  be  accepted  for  a 
minute — for  we  must  still  have  such  well-meaning  educa- 
tors explain  to  us  what  they  mean  by  education — and  that 
takes  us  squarely  back  to  the  great  question  of  purpose. 
The  real  purpose  of  education  can  never  be  anybody's 
good  intentions — regardless  of  how  good  they  may  be. 
Seneca  says  that,  * '  It  is  not  the  incense  or  the  offering  that 
is  acceptable  to  God,  but  the  purity  and  devotion  of  the 
worshipper."  Neither  is  it  the  educational  incense  of  our 
mere  good  intentions,  or  of  our  best  objective  equipment 
that  can  ever  answer  the  sacred  call  of  education — it  is 
the  '* purity  and  devotion"  and  accuracy  of  our  percep- 


54  THE   GREAT   QUESTION 

tions  in  the  great  field  of  purpose.  That  alone  will  consti- 
tute ** purity  and  devotion"  on  the  part  of  the  worshipper 
in  the  temple  of  education.  The  mind  must  be  positively 
right  on  this  great  central  truth — else  all  of  our  music  will 
be  as  ''sounding  brass  or  a  tinkling  cymbal."  As  Holland 
puts  it,  ''Childhood  may  do  without  a  grand  purpose,  but 
manhood  cannot." 

Above  all,  does  this  statement  apply  to  education — for 
we  have  already  admitted  that  education  is  the  most  im- 
portant work  ever  undertaken  by  the  human  race.  Shame 
then — that  we  should  float  or  drift  for  a  second  in  such  a 
field !  A  purpose  is  demanded  which  at  every  turn  shall  be 
commensurate  with  education  itself  in  its  importance.  Such 
a  purpose  must  be  so  true  and  so  gripping  in  its  effects, 
and  in  its  power  to  inspire  that  we  can  never  desert  it. 
The  moment  that  the  world  becomes  duly  conscious  of 
purpose  in  education  as  the  most  important  single  element 
therein,  well  can  each  educator  say  to  himsell  with  Shake- 
speare : 

"Make  thick  my  blood, 

Stop  up  the  access  and  passage  to  remorse : 
That  no  eompmictious  visitings  of  Nature 
Shake  my  fell  purpose." 

But  even  more  than  all  that,  purpose  is  also  our  ideal. 
Knowing  first  the  overtowering  importance  of  purpose — 
and  second,  knowing  unmistakably  what  correct  purpose  is 
— then  no  other  ideal  is  at  all  to  be  thought  of.  Purpose 
concentrates  into  one  single  word  all  the  immensities  that 
any  ideal  is  competent  to  inscribe  and  include.  The  trouble 
with  ideas  generally  is,  that  they  are  too  often  without 
foundations — they  lack  beneath  them  the  solid  rock  of 
legitimate  purpose.  Where  purpose  is  wrong,  one's  ideal 
may  take  on  any  one  of  a  thousand  erroneous  flights.  Ideals 
of  that  type  are  without  substance.  They  lack  in  under- 
lying qualities.  They  also  lack  in  specific  ones.  Most  ideals 
are  entirely  too  general  and  too  undefined — for  the  reason 
that  ideals  always  reflect  the  common  color  of  the  set  of 
purposes  lying  back  of  them. 


AND   MY   OWN   ANSWER  55 

Emerson  says  somewhere  in  his  essay  on  Self-Reliance 
that ' '  Power  consists  in  darting  to  an  aim. ' '  That  expresses 
it  well.  Aim  develops  within  us  "darting"  qualities — ^be- 
cause the  aim  itself  compels  it.  Purpose  sees  to  it  that  we 
take  the  one  correct  direction,  and  not  a  thousand  wrong 
ones.  Our  endeavors  in  life  are  as  bits  of  steel  around  a 
magnet.  Exposed  to  the  magnet  of  purpose,  we  dart  un- 
erringly in  that  direction.  If  our  purpose  is  wrong,  then 
we  find  ourselves  worshipping  at  a  false  shrine — and  the 
while  that  we  do  so,  we  are  enemies,  not  only  of  ourselves, 
but  also  of  mankind.  For,  let  it  not  be  forgotten,  education 
is  not  simply  paddling  its  own  canoe — it  is  also  piloting 
the  mighty  fleet  which  carries  with  it  the  childhood  army 
of  the  world.  Surely  this  patent  fact  need  not  be  em- 
phasized. 

Then  too  our  aim  must  actually  be  formulated.  It  must 
be  pointedly  specific  to  a  fault.  The  statement  of  our  aim 
must  not  obscure.  It  must  illumine.  Never  must  it  be 
general.  It  must  be  so  clear  and  so  specific  that  it  consti- 
tutes a  definite,  unmistakable  goal.  For  example,  a  triangle 
may  be  called  a  "figure.'*  And  yet  there  are  thousands 
of  things  that  are  ' '  figures. "  It  is  my  conviction  that  pre- 
vailing aims  in  education  are  overwhelmingly  of  the  "fig- 
ure ' '  type.  And  that  is  a  mistake — for,  if  purpose  is  of  such 
awful  importance,  then  why  should  we  hang  up  any  signal 
lights  that  might  be  misunderstood?  If  there  is  anything 
in  the  world  that  wants  to  be  made  "fool  proof,"  it  is  our 
statement  and  analysis  of  educational  aims — for  the  reason 
that  vague  and  general  aims  point  nowhere.  They  are  por- 
cupine directors.  They  lack  the  magic  of  an  index  finger. 
Without  a  single  exception  education  must  envelop  itself 
in  a  world  of  haze,  wherever  there  is  lacking  a  clear-cut 
clarity  in  the  statement  of  our  aim. 

And  that  is  the  one  great  reason  why  education  thus  far 
has  never  correctly  answered  the  crying  call  of  mankind — 
because  education  has  never  yet  viewed  the  question  of 
purpose  with  such  seriousness  as  to  get  right  down  to  bed- 
rock principles.    At  no  time  in  all  the  history  of  education 


56  THE   GEEAT    QUESTION 

has  purpose  as  such  burned  itself  in  letters  of  fire  into 
educational  thought.  Never  has  education  paused  and  said 
to  itself  while  dealing  with  purpose:  "This  is  point  one. 
By  comparison,  all  else  is  insignificant.  With  purpose  right, 
then  education  is  bound  to  be  right.  But  with  a  purpose 
that  is  wrong,  then  all  education  must  be  wrong.  What 
follows  correct  purpose  is  bound  to  be  right,  for  purpose  is 
the  one  great  line  that  determines  our  angle  every  foot  of 
the  way.  Purpose  is  our  chart  and  our  compass.  We  must 
not  budge  from  our  tracks  until  our  purpose  is  right. ' ' 

No — emphatically  no — never  has  education  ever  said 
that.  Never  has  education  ever  been  transfigured  by  its 
appreciation  or  by  its  treatment  of  purpose.  It  is  nowhere 
on  record  that  education  has  ever  held  with  itself  the  above 
soliloquy.  To  be  sure,  education  has  at  times  in  its  history 
talked  about  purpose — but  only  at  times,  and  then  never  in 
an  all-searching  manner.  The  trail  of  purpose  has  never 
been  hit  right,  and  then  clung  to  with  a  tenacity  that  sur- 
passes human  understanding.  In  a  most  dominant  sense, 
purpose  in  education  has  been  blinded  and  befogged  by  the 
very  word  education  itself — as  if  education  per  se  is  some- 
thing elemental,  ultimate  and  final.  Purpose  has  at  all 
times  been  pretty  much  a  taken-for-granted  affair.  It  has 
at  no  time  been  the  magical  word  in  education.  That  posi- 
tion, tragic  to  relate,  has  always  been  reserved  for  the  word 
education  itself.  Education  has  simply  been  permitted  to 
get  in  its  own  light.  It  has  been  looked  upon  as  some  sort 
of  a  chemical  element — when  as  a  matter  of  fact,  education 
is  the  most  complex  compound  known  to  the  human  race. 
The  basic  element  is  purpose.  It  is  the  real  salt  of  the  edu- 
cational universe. 

Purpose  is  the  star  to  which  we  hitch  our  wagon.  In 
the  long  run  it  is  the  wagon  itself.  It  is  also  the  very  road 
over  which  we  travel,  or  the  aerial  stretches  of  infinity 
through  which  we  sail.  Purpose  is  everything  in  the 
makeup  of  our  journey.  It  is  the  reins  that  guide,  and 
the  driver  that  steers.  It  is  every  rut  in  our  road,  and 
every  jolt  in  our  wagon.  But  education  is  not  aware  of  that 
fact  today — and  it  never  has  been. 


AND  MY  OWN  ANSWER  57 

But,  how  do  I  know  that  ?  I  know  it  because  out  of  the 
hundreds  of  educators  that  I  have  personally  sounded  dur- 
ing the  past  ten  years  as  to  what  is  the  greatest  question 
that  one  could  raise  in  education,  not  a  single  one  of  them 
has  ever  breathed  a  solitary  syllable  about  purpose.  I  say 
most  emphatically  that  purpose  is  nowhere  to  be  found  in 
the  focal  consciousness  of  the  educational  world.  In  terms 
of  educational  consciousness  today,  purpose  is  not  the  foun- 
dation of  the  temple  of  education  at  all — it  is  hardly  more 
than  a  tack  in  one  of  the  shingles.  Purpose,  as  far  as  edu- 
cation is  concerned,  is  a  perfectly  settled  thing.  That 
little  item  is  completely  out  of  the  way — it  is  a  self-settler, 
somewhat  after  the  manner  of  coffee  grounds.  A  matter  of 
such  insignificance  as  purpose  can  simply  be  put  away  to 
bed  like  a  little  child.  Like  the  same  little  child  that  it  is, 
purpose  in  education  is  to  be  ''seen  and  not  heard" — this 
is  true  with  the  slight  exception  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
even  to  be  seen. 

But  education  is  more  than  utterly  blase  on  the  ques- 
tion of  educational  purpose — it  is  also  as  silent  as  an  Indian 
dummy  when  it  comes  to  any  consciousness  or  any  inquiry 
as  to  the  concept  of  what  one  peak  in  their  field  may  be  the 
highest.  The  mind  of  education  is  as  blank  on  this  issue  as 
Hawthorne's  Great  Stone  Face  on  the  side  of  the  canyon. 
As  far  as  education  is  concerned,  its  field  is  one  vast  un- 
broken plain — no  hills — ^no  valleys — no  contrasts — of  any 
kind.  It  is  no  surprise  at  all  that  my  question  awakens  in 
the  minds  of  educators  a  pronounced  wonder  as  to  what 
sort  of  puzzle  or  riddle  or  conundrum  it  is  to  which  they 
are  being  subjected  when  I  ask  them  what  the  biggest  ques- 
tion is  that  can  be  asked  in  education — because,  I  repeat, 
that  such  a  thought  has  never  been  a  part  of  educational 
consciousness.  *  *  The  noblest  Roman  of  them  all"  is  an  idea 
that  has  always  escaped  education. 

And  here  I  want  to  point  out  that  I  lay  especial  stress 
on  the  element  of  consciousness.  Regardless  of  the  great 
moulding  part  played  by  the  sub-conscious  in  every  depart- 
ment of  life,  the  great  mountain  peaks  of  human  conduct 


58  THE   GEEAT   QUESTION 

and  human  attainment  must  rear  themselves  above  the 
horizon  of  consciousness.  The  human  mind  grasps  and  pro- 
jects things  only  in  proportion  to  the  degree  that  those  things 
get  into  consciousness.  Education  must  drive  home  to  the 
dazzling  gong  of  focal  consciousness  every  single  thing  that 
it  would  impart  or  develop.  Drastically  conscious  must 
education  always  be  about  all  things  that  are  its  business — 
and  among  its  most  important  business  is  the  self-compre- 
hension of  its  own  principles — and  the  flooding  of  the  mem- 
bers of  its  own  profession  with  an  unmistakably  definite  in- 
sight into  every  nook  and  corner  and  crevice  and  cranny  as 
to  what  it  is  all  about.  If  the  minds  of  teachers  themselves 
are  blurred  and  clouded  and  befogged  as  to  the  central 
tenets  of  education — then  what  is  blinder  than  education 
itself  ?  Then  what  of  the  public — and,  incidentally,  what  of 
that  old  familiar  reference  which  used  to  say  something 
about  "the  blind  leading  the  blind"? 

Education  will  never  in  all  eternity  rise  above  that  plane 
which  is  a  burning,  raging  conflagration  within  its  own 
mind.  Neither  will  the  world  which  we  are  trying  to  educate 
ever  rise  above  that  level — for,  it  is  well  recorded  on  the 
papyrus  of  the  ages,  that  no  stream  can  ever  rise  above  its 
source.  But  consciousness  must  be  the  eternal  source  and 
plane  on  which  education  rests  every  one  of  its  measuring 
instruments.  Never  shall  education  rise  above  the  level  of 
those  principles  of  which  it  is  conscious.  Never  shall  edu- 
cation ever  impart  more  to  mankind  than  education  itself 
possesses  in  terms  of  conscious  material.  The  number  and 
the  degree  of  those  things  of  which  education  is  sharply 
and  critically  conscious — of  such  is  the  complete  kingdom 
of  education.  Let  education  make  up  its  mind  here  and 
now  that  it  will  never  be  able  to  impart  one  iota  of  good  to 
the  world  in  any  unconscious  or  miraculous  manner.  Pupils 
do  not  absorb  life  values  of  a  positive  kind  in  any  such  a 
manner — and  neither  does  the  teaching  profession  itself. 
Every  single  issue  must  be  vitalized  and  vivified  by  the  un- 
wavering glow  of  a  central  purpose  burning  itself  without 
fend  and  without  limit  on  the  altars  of  human  consciousness. 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  59 

What  education  would  project,  let  it  entertain.  And  what 
it  would  entertain,  let  it  inscribe  on  a  huge  signboard — and 
then  elevate  that  signboard  into  the  skies.  If  education 
were  about  its  business  it  would  begin  a  careful  examination 
of  what  is  in  its  consciousness.  It  would  take  a  careful  in- 
voice of  everything  on  its  shelves — and  then  it  would  know 
for  itself  just  how  close  it  really  is  to  the  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy. It  would  not  then  be  necessary  to  take  my  word 
for  it — or  to  dispute  it. 

But  I  have  an  explanation  as  to  why  education  has  so 
unfortunately  drifted  along  without  much  of  a  conscious- 
ness in  the  field  of  purpose.  It  is  because  of  an  undefined 
faith  in  education.  The  name  itself  has  seemed  to  fill  the 
bill.  An  accepted  faith  is  always  an  unchallenged  one — and 
that  always  means  the  checkmating  of  analysis  in  advance. 
Such  a  faith  is  a  blind  faith  in  a  double  sense — ^first,  in  the 
sense  that  the  faith  entertained  does  not  see  any  real  why 
for  its  being ;  and,  second,  in  the  sense  that  that  same  faith 
stands  in  the  way  of  analytical  inquiry.  Our  diffused  and 
generalized  faith  in  education  is  so  great  that  we  have  be- 
come unconscious  of  both  the  faith  and  the  education.  As 
a  civilization,  we  have  entertained  a  faith  in  education  for 
so  long  that  we  have  simply  set  the  whole  affair  aside  as  a 
matter  requiring  no  particular  attention  from  us. 

We  all  agree  that  education  is  a  good  thing.  We  believe 
that  it  is  better  to  educate  an  individual  than  it  is  not  to 
educate  him.  This  is  the  first  principle  in  the  philosophy 
of  all  our  attempts  to  educate.  It  is  the  fundamental  rea- 
son why  we  have  an  organized  education  at  all.  We  be- 
lieve that  our  life  of  civilization  and  culture  is  better  than 
primitive  man's  life  of  simplicity  and  savagery.  For  this 
reason,  education  for  its  children  is  the  chief  aim  and  am- 
bition of  every  household — and  to  such  a  degree  that  many 
are  the  sacrifices  and  self-denials  made  in  order  to  carry 
out  those  ideals  and  those  desires. 

But  when  we  invest  such  faith  in  education,  I  insist 
that  we  know  tvhy.  The  word  education  itself  has  no  charm 
for  me.   I  want  to  know  exactly  what  the  precise  and  ulti- 


60  THE    GEEAT   QUESTION 

mate  object  of  my  faith  in  education  is.  I  never  did  believe 
in  buying  a  cat  in  a  bag,  anyway.  The  faith  that  we  in- 
vest in  any  human  endeavor  is  always  greater  and  more 
sacred  than  anything  else  that  we  invest  in  that  endeavor 
— and  for  this  reason  alone  we  should  examine  most  critic- 
ally any  object  for  which  we  barter  away  our  faith.  From 
every  standpoint,  faith  is  a  sacred  price — and  in  this  case, 
education,  which  represents  our  purchase,  should  be  corre- 
spondingly sacred.  That  real  purchase  is  nothing  more  or 
less  than  the  daily  working  purpose  underlying  our  educa^ 
Hon.  I  want  to  know  w^hat  that  purpose  is — for  I  know, 
without  any  arguments  from  books  or  philosophers,  that 
purpose  is  the  Herculean  giant  to  which  we  must  look. 

Now,  the  real  function  of  faith  in  anything  is,  to  hegin 
where  facts  leave  off.  In  general,  faith  must  never  pre-empt 
the  territory  of  facts.  This  side  of  every  horizon,  we 
should  see  and  know;  beyond  the  horizon  the  fields  belong  to 
faith.  For  this  reason,  our  faith  in  education  should  be 
fortified  with  facts  just  as  largely  as  possible.  The  moment 
that  that  does  not  obtain,  our  faith  becomes  blind ;  it  slum- 
bers ;  it  narrows  our  horizon ;  it  closes  our  eyes  to  what  lies 
within  the  range  of  vision — and  instead  of  being  an  ever- 
active  instrument  in  the  discovery  of  truth,  our  faith  be- 
comes but  a  blanket  to  blind  our  eyes.  I  say  that  faith  must 
always  justify  its  object  to  the  fullest  possible  extent.  The 
only  road  to  such  justification  is  never  to  permit  faith  to 
slumber  on  the  territory  of  facts. 

Most  assuredly,  we  want  to  know  with  an  alarming  ex- 
actness just  what  we  are  trying  to  do  when  we  say  that  we 
are  trying  to  educate  our  children.  The  only  way  to  arrive 
at  such  exactness  is  to  challenge  our  faith  in  education  every 
inch  of  the  way.  What  we  need  in  education,  as  indeed  in 
every  human  endeavor,  is  a  plan — a  purpose — an  aim — 
engraved  on  tablets  of  gold  in  advance.  The  blue  print  of 
purpose  should  precede  every  single  step  that  we  make  in 
life.  This  is  a  thousand  times  truer  of  education  perhaps 
than  it  is  of  anything  else.  Nothing  can  possibly  equal  in 
its  tremendous  fundamental  importance  the  carefully  drawn 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  61 

map  of  our  plans — the  map — which,  drawn  in  advance  is 
to  act  as  our  chart  and  our  compass.  With  a  plan  and  a 
purpose  in  our  hands  w^e  are  going  somewhere — and  that 
somewhere  is  apt  to  be  right.  Without  plans,  we  are  going 
nowhere — and  that  nowhere  is  bound  to  be  wrong.  Start 
with  no  plan,  no  purpose,  and  one  gets  nowhere.  Start  with 
a  poor,  vague  plan — nine-tenths  buried  in  the  depths  of  sub- 
consciousness— and  one's  chief  business  will  be  that  of  wast- 
ing his  time — and  the  time  of  the  world. 

And  so  I  charge  a  superabundance  of  undefined  faith  as 
being  one  of  the  main  obstacles  that  have  stood  in  the  light 
of  educational  progress.  We  must  make  education  show  its 
passports — and  quit  eternally  accepting  things.  The  man 
who  accepts  things,  rests  on  them.  The  trouble  with  educa- 
tion is,  that  it  has  been  resting  and  rusting.  Education  has 
been  too  lazy  to  inquire  deeply — and  that  too  without  know- 
ing of  her  own  inertness — thus  confirming  the  fact  that 
"Of  all  passions,  that  which  is  least  known  to  us  is  in- 
dolence."^ 

As  a  closing  w^ord  of  this  chapter,  I  want  to  say  that  w^e 
are  standing  on  sacred  ground.  Let  us  prove  ourselves  worthy 
of  our  position.  The  best  interest  of  the  child  and  of  the 
race  are  at  stake — and  Nature  appeals  to  us  to  select  our 
footsteps  with  wisdom.  Nowhere  else  in  all  education  shall 
we  find  any  spot  so  inviolable  as  right  here  in  the  field  of 
purpose.  Whatever  tablets  of  real  worth  that  shall  ever 
come  to  mankind  shall  be  handed  down  to  us  by  the  Infinite 
right  here  on  this  mountain — the  mountain  of  purpose.  I 
say  this  because  I  regard  the  purpose  of  education  as  in- 
comparably the  most  fundamental  question  that  education 
can  ever  ask.  And  the  great  tragedy  of  it  all  is — the  fact 
that  neither  education  nor  civilization  knows  it.  Upon  the 
vividness  of  ohject  hinges  the  only  hope  of  attainment. 
It  is  that  basic  truth  which  I  utter  over  and  over 
again. 

Finally,  then,  this  is  my  own  answer  to  my  own  inquiry 
calling  for  the  greatest  question  that  can  be  raised  in  the 

^  La  Rochefoucauld :  Pensees,  LIV. 


62  THE    GREAT    QUESTION 

entire  field  of  education,  namely:  What  is  the  purpose  of 
education? 

This  at  the  same  time  means  that  education  is  now  called 
upon  to  answer  another  question.  In  the  next  chapter  the 
world's  answer  to  this  question  shall  be  reviewed. 


CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 
AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER 

In  the  preceding  chapter  I  laid  down  purpose  as  the 
most  important  question  that  can  be  raised  in  education 
today.  In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  inquire  into  what 
the  world  says  the  purpose  of  education  is.  In  so  doing,  let 
it  be  remembered  that  it  has  never  been  my  contention  that 
the  educational  world  has  had  nothing  to  say  about  aims — 
but  rather  that  by  comparison  with  the  overwhelming  im- 
portance of  purpose,  education  has  been  notoriously  silent, 
and  scandalously  superficial. 

Above  all,  wherever  a  word  has  been  spoken  on  the 
question  of  purpose,  education  has  been  criminally  general. 
Education's  great  stock  in  trade  has  been  platitudes.  To  a 
very  large  extent,  education  has  indulged  in  the  use  of  self- 
evident  propositions  of  the  commonplace  type — propositions 
to  which  for  the  most  part,  no  person  would  think  of  rais- 
ing objection — and  yet  withal,  propositions  which  one  would 
hardly  think  it  worth  while  to  mention.  Education  has  elab- 
orated on  the  obvious — with  the  slight  exception  that  very 
often  most  of  the  important  elaborating  has  been  left  out. 
The  greatest  love  of  education  has  been  to  proclaim  prin- 
ciples that  are  in  no  way  ultimate — ^principles  that  are  in 
no  way  bed-rock — principles  whose  only  sin  and  crime  is, 
that  they  do  not  go  far  enough — principles  which  are  hardly 
starting  points,  much  less  goals.  Generalized  principles 
and  definitions  of  that  type  have  been  the  bane  of  edu- 
cation. 

And  yet  with  all  its  vagueness,  some  of  our  educators 
would  argue  about  the  "science"  of  education!  They 
would  wax  warm  in  controversially  affirming  that  surely 
there  is  a  science  of  education.    I  claim  that  there  can  be  a 

63 


64  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

science  of  nothing  witli  such  a  fog  of  generalities  about  it  as 
education  has  precipitated  about  itself.  If  education  as  it 
stands  today  is  a  science,  then  it  is  nothing  more  or  less  than 
the  science  of  vague  generality.  I  emphasize  this  phase  of  the 
situation  in  particular,  because  if  education  is  not  going  to 
be  a  science  in  the  very  statement  of  its  aim — then  what  a 
wild-goose  chase  education  must  become  in  every  step  be- 
yond its  announced  purpose ! 

But  let  us  permit  education  to  speak  for  itself.  Referring 
to  the  question  of  definitions,  Putnam  says;  ''A  formal 
definition  of  education  is  not  absolutely  necessary  at  the  out- 
set of  our  work."^^  I  insist  that  such  a  definition  is  abso- 
lutely necessary — at  least  some  place — and  the  fact  that  it 
has  no  place  been  set  forth  gives  rise  to  the  conditions 
pointed  out  by  Putnam  when  he  speaks  again:  ''This  in- 
quiry is  the  more  necessary  from  the  fact  that  definitions 
given  by  prominent  educators  are  exceedingly  diverse,  and 
in  not  a  few  cases  apparently  contradictory."^^  But  Put- 
nam immediately  finds  consolation  in  that  predicament 
by  extenuating  as  follows :  ' '  A  little  reflection  brings  us  to 
see  that  such  a  variety  of  definition  and  description  is 
exactly  what  might  have  been  expected. '  '^^ 

Yes,  it  is  indeed,  truly  what  one  ''might  have  expected" 
— but  not  at  all  due  to  the  reasons  suspected  by  Putnam. 
The  real  reason  for  the  diversity  and  contradiction  is  error 
— and  nothing  else. 

But  let  us  continue  with  Putnam ^s  explanation:  *' Dif- 
ferent observers  looking  at  the  same  natural  objects  from 
different  directions  receive  and  carry  away  impressions  and 
mental  pictures  marvelously  unlike Yet  each  per- 
son has  recorded  fairly  and  truthfully  what  he  saw  from 
his  point  of  view.  A  correct  and  complete  notion  of  the 
whole  object,  as  viewed  from  all  directions  and  upon  all 
sides,  can  be  obtained  only  by  combining  these  various  and 
varied  descriptions  into  a  single  one  which  shall  embrace 

^0 Putnam:  Manual  of  Pedagogics,  page  11. 

11  Ibid.,  page  12. 

12  Ibid.,  page  12. 


AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  65 

everything  of  importance  in  them  all In  like  man- 
ner, students  of  education  approach  the  subject  from  differ- 
ent directions,  view  it  in  different  aspects,  and  consider  it 

with  reference  to  different  purposes  and  ends Of 

necessity,  the  view  taken  by  any  one  individual  can  be  only 

a  partial  and  incomplete  one One  aspect  attracts 

and  charms  one  class  of  minds ;  another  aspect  attracts  and 
charms  another  class  of  minds.  The  philosopher  looks  at  one 
aspect,  the  practical  man  at  another  aspect.  The  states- 
man takes  one  view,  and  has  regard  to  one  end.  The  teacher 
of  morals  and  religion  takes  a  different  view,  and  has  regard 
to  a  different  end.'"' 

In  this,  Putnam  would  liken  different  students  of  edu- 
cation unto  ' '  Different  observers  looking  at  the  same  natural 
object  from  different  directions"!  Shame  on  such  a  com- 
parison! Education  is  not  such  a  tossing  of  pennies — 
heads  or  tails.  Yet  what  Putnam  says,  very  truthfully  por- 
trays what  is  going  on  in  the  world  of  education  everywhere. 
It  seems  that  no  student  anywhere  is  studying  education. 
It  is  simply  a  question  of  one  tapping  here,  and  another 
there — a  thousand  students  and  a  thousand  vievrs — as  if 
education  were  a  few  million  different  things,  as  the  above 
quotation  suggests.  How  tragic  it  is,  that  our  educational 
chaos  is  such  that  Putnam  must  voice  the  expression  that, 
' '  Of  necessity  the  view  taken  by  any  one  individual  can  be 
only  a  partial  and  incomplete  one One  aspect  at- 
tracts and  charms  one  class  of  minds ;  another  aspect  equally 
attracts  and  charms  another  class  of  minds." 

This  reduces  education  to  ashes.  It  becomes  but  a  com- 
plex of  the  passing  whims  that  different  ''students  of  edu- 
cation" may  entertain — and  all  the  time  I  was  laboring  un- 
der the  delusion  that  we  were  talking  about  truth — a  "sci- 
ence" of  education !  But  now  it  turns  out  that  it  is  not  an 
educational  scientist  who  is  molding  our  education  at  all — 
but  simply  a  mere  '' philosopher  " —  a  mere  ** practical  man" 
— a  mere  * '  statesman ' ' — a  mere  * '  teacher  of  morals  and  re- 
ligion ' ' — and  that  our  education  is  but  a  compound  *  *  crazy 

13  Ibid.,  pages  12  and  13. 
5 


^6  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

quilt"  patched  together  from  countless  independent  views 
thus  gathered.  Is  it  any  wonder  under  such  circumstances 
that  education  is  somewhat  like  a  train  wreck  that  may 
be  viewed  in  as  many  different  ways  as  there  happen  to  be 
sightseers  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  education  has  a  thousand 
superficial  purposes — instead  of  one  fundamental  one?  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  education,  instead  of  being  built  about 
one  grand,  central  truth,  is  merely  a  conglomeration  of 
vague,  superficial  and  generalized  opinions  ? 

If  it  is,  let  us  then  listen  to  Butler,  who  lets  the  cat 
completely  out  of  the  bag  in  the  following  expression :  * '  A 
science  of  education  is  analogous  to  a  science  of  medicine. 
....  Neither  medicine  nor  education  makes  any  pretense  to 
exactness.  "^"^  "What  a  tragedy  to  make  such  a  comparison 
— not  that  education  is  any  more  of  a  science  than  medicine 
is,  but  that  medicine  comes  by  long  odds  the  farthest  from 
being  a  science  of  any  art  to  which  the  human  race  has  ever 
set  hand.  How  glorious  it  is,  therefore — the  spectacle  of 
setting  up  medicine  as  the  standard  by  which  we  shall  judge 
education!  What  an  inspiration  in  the  inference  that 
if  education  just  keeps  up  with  medicine  we  shall  be  all 
right !  What  satisfaction  in  the  thought  that  our  scientific 
obligations  are  any  the  less,  simply  because  there  are  other 
things  in  the  world  that  make  no  "pretense  to  exactness"! 
In  a  word,  how  misery  does  love  company — and  how  content 
to  remain  misemble  just  as  long  as  the  company  will  con- 
sent to  stay  and  sit  up  with  us !  And  yet  Butler  is  right — 
education  and  medicine  are  alike — and  medicine  is  no  sci- 
ence at  all.  Surely  no  student  of  human  affairs  should  be  in 
the  dark  on  a  fact  so  patent  as  that. 

Now,  thus  far  I  have  given  none  of  the  world 's  purposes 
of  education.  Rather  have  I  been  paving  the  way  by  point- 
ing out  the  general  chaos  and  confusion  that  exist  in  the 
field  of  education.  I  have  wanted  to  make  it  plain  in  a  few 
introductory  words  that  current  educational  attitude  which 
has  compelled  me  to  take  drastic  issue  with  the  general  tenor 


14  Nicholas  Murray  Butler:    The  Meaning  of  Education    (1915), 
page  6. 


AND    THE   WOKLD'S   ANSWER  67 

of  educational  procedure.     We  are  now  ready  to  take  up 
some  of  the  purposes  current  in  this  so-called  science. 

1.  Formal  Discipline. 

The  doctrine  of  formal  discipline  comes  to  us  from  the 
past.  According  to  this  doctrine,  thinking  is  a  sort  of  gen- 
eralized process — if  one  is  a  good  thinker  in  one  field,  then 
he  will  be  a  good  thinker  in  all  fields.  Under  the  heading 
of  this  purpose,  it  makes  but  little  difference  what  one 
studies — for,  to  be  a  sound  thinker  in  algebra  or  Latin  will 
guarantee  sound  thinking  in  business,  statesmanship,  farm- 
ing, cookery — or  any  other  art  to  which  the  student  may 
ultimately  set  hand.  The  aim  is  not  primarily  to  secure  a 
mastery  of  knowledge  in  various  fields,  but  ''to  train  the 
reasoning  powers"  in  general. 

The  reliance  of  such  a  purpose  is,  that  the  human  mind 
is  an  excessively  unified  homogeneity — and,  that  what  one 
learns,  completely  saturates  the  entire  mind  with  a  sort  of 
generalized  power  which  can  be  called  upon  for  effective 
service  in  any  special  field  of  life.  Wliat  the  student  learns 
in  any  special  subject  is  not  thus  confined  to  that  particular 
field,  but  ''spreads"  out  in  all  directions.  Such  a  process  is 
called  the  "transfer  of  training."  Good  training  in  geom- 
etry, for  example,  would  help  to  make  one  a  good  reasoner 
in  law.  The  mind  would  contain  no  barriers  or  insulation 
of  any  kind  between  any  special  type  of  knowledge  and  the 
power  of  the  mind  as  a  whole  for  any  activity.  Such  is  the 
claim  of  this  purpose. 

Formal  discipline,  as  thus  conceived,  has  played  a  very 
large  part  in  the  past  in  determining  the  things  that  we 
have  taught  in  our  educational  institutions  of  all  classes. 
Many  subjects  and  requirements  have  been  retained  from 
generation  to  generation  merely  on  the  assumption  that  they 
were  trainers  of  general  thinking  and  general  reasoning 
power.  But  formal  discipline  largely  overlooks  the  funda- 
mental principle  of  apperception.  To  take  step  two  in  any- 
thing, the  human  mind  always  demands  step  one  as  a  pre- 


68  THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

requisite.  The  mind  of  man  does  not  reason  on  nothing.  It 
reasons  on  experienced  and  deposited  data.  When  that  data 
is  absent,  then  there  is  no  basis  whatever  upon  which  to 
build  any  structure  of  either  thought  or  conduct.  Nor  will 
step  ten  in  a  certain  chain  of  thought  and  conduct  experi- 
ence take  the  place  of  that  very  essential  step  number  one 
in  a  totally  different  chain  of  experience.  There  obtains  no 
such  a  vicarious  principle  in  the  human  mind  at  all.  Apper- 
ception in  itself  makes  that  forever  impossible. 

Consequently,  formal  discipline  must  be  dismissed  as  a 
purpose  of  education.  And  it  may  be  said  to  the  credit 
of  present-day  education  that  to  a  very  great  extent  this 
one-time  dominating  educational  doctrine  is  passing  into 
disuse.  It  is  one  of  the  contributions  of  education  during 
the  past  quarter  of  a  century  that  formal  discipline  has 
fallen  into  an  ever  increasing  disrepute.  The  most  direct 
result  has  been  the  reorganization  and  simplifying  of  school 
and  college  curricula  everywhere.  No  longer  are  subjects 
being  taught  for  the  purpose  of  developing  general  reason- 
ing ability,  but  for  the  purpose  of  applied  use  in  their  own 
special  spheres.  Greater  flexibility  has  been  the  result — 
more  selections  and  fewer  fixed  requirements  in  determin- 
ing what  the  pupil  shall  study  in  school. 

It  is  the  past  educational  world,  therefore,  which  has 
been  responsible  for  the  doctrine  of  formal  discipline,  rather 
than  the  immediate  present.  However,  the  idea  is  herewith 
briefly  presented  in  order  to  point  out  the  fact  that  it  held 
forth  as  a  dominating  purpose  in  education  for  centuries. 
It  is  a  doctrine  that  is  being  increasingly  looked  upon  as 
unsound.  And,  yet  at  the  same  time,  in  all  fairness,  let  it 
be  said  here  that  there  is  perhaps  no  person  today  who  is 
able  to  state  positively  just  what  the  actual  merits  or 
demerits  of  formal  discipline  are — our  present  knowledge 
of  psychology  forbids  it. 

2.  Culture. 

At  all  times,  culture  has  been  conspicuous  as  one  of  the 
avowed  purposes  of  education — ^though,  as  far  as  I  am 


AND  THE  WOELD'S  ANSWER  69 

aware,  no  one  has  ever  explained  in  unmistakable  terms 
what  culture  means.  Most  people  associate  the  word  per- 
haps with  "a  knowledge  of  what  the  race  has  said  and 
done."  The  word  has  carried  with  it  the  implication  of 
knowing  things  for  the  sake  of  not  being  unlettered — for 
the  sake  of  polish  and  refinement,  and  even  outward  show. 

As  far  as  the  word  culture  itself  is  concerned,  it  tells  U3 
nothing.  It  must  simply  sum  up  the  things  for  which  it 
stands — ^whatever  they  may  be.  Whatever  magic  there  is 
in  the  word,  must  come  from  the  things  which  the  word  it- 
self symbolizes.  This  throws  the  whole  question  of  the  pur- 
pose of  education  back  upon  whatever  content  is  injected 
into  culture.  But  nowhere  is  that  content  to  be  found  in 
anything  like  a  penetrating  analysis  of  human  life.  A  sec- 
tion of  knowledge  here,  and  another  section  there,  all  clad 
in  the  most  generalized  terms,  is  all  that  one  can  find. 
There  is  much  talk  about  giving  to  the  child  its  ''social  in- 
heritance '  *  in  terms  of  shotgun  phraseology,  but  nowhere  is 
to  be  found  that  rifleshot  logic  and  analysis  so  essential  to 
strike  the  gong  of  central  truth.  Butler  says  that,  "The 
child  is  entitled  to  his  scientific,  literary,  aesthetic,  institu- 
tional and  religious  inheritance."^^  Mill  gives  about  the 
same  thought  when  he  states  that,  "Education  is  the  cul- 
ture which  each  generation  purposely  gives  to  those  who 
are  to  be  its  successors.  "^^ 

But  neither  Butler  nor  Mill  hits  the  nail  on  the  head — 
nor  the  head  on  the  nail.  What  they  say  is  true  enough — 
but  they  stop  before  they  get  started.  Nowhere  does  either 
one  of  them  set  up  a  giant  final  index  finger  which  says  -: 
"Here — here  is  the  path  of  life  education.  Take  it.  There 
must  be  none  other.  Let  every  single  light  of  life  be  fo- 
cused hereon."  No — their  writings  contain  no  such  spe- 
cific perceptions  on  education. 

Nor  is  anything  to  be  found  under  the  culture  aim  of 
education  that  ever  gets  down  to  bed-rock — ^not  that  there 

15  Nicholas  Murray  Butler:  The  Meaning  of  Education,  page  26. 

16  John  Stuart  Mill,  quoted  from  Putnam :  Manual  of  Pedagogics, 
page  16. 


70         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

is  anything  at  all  wrong  with  the  word  culture,  but  simply 
that  no  one  seems  to  have  gone  down  into  a  deep  and  search- 
ing inquiry  as  to  what  culture  really  should  consist  of. 
Hence,  the  word  culture  adds  nothing  whatever  to  the  field 
of  education.  It  becomes  but  another  blanket  to  cover  up 
more  ignorance  as  to  what  education  ought  to  be.  Let  some- 
one of  the  advocates  of  culture  tell  us  exactly  and  specificly 
what  education  should  accomplish — and  then  we  shall  not 
have  any  use  for  the  word  culture  at  all. 

Finally,  must  not  anyone  see,  upon  a  moment's  careful 
reflection,  that  culture  is  such  a  general  term  that  it  points 
nowhere?  If  this  is  true — and  it  is — ^then  as  a  purpose  of 
education,  culture  is  but  a  huge  jest.  The  teacher  armed  in 
the  classroom  with  the  culture  consciousness  is  indeed  very 
far  adrift  when  it  comes  to  knowing  precisely  what  should 
be  done  for  the  children  that  are  there  to  be  educated. 
Such  a  teacher  would  be  a  wanderer  in  fields  that  are 
largely  remote  from  the  real  territory  of  education.  Indeed, 
owing  to  the  very  vague  nature  of  the  word  culture,  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  as  a  purpose  of  education,  culture 
has  been  well  nigh  as  destructive  as  formal  discipline. 
Culhire  illustrates  admirably  how  well  education  loves  to 
indulge  in  the  projecting  of  glittering  generalities. 

3.  Knowledge. 

Closely  allied  to  the  culture  aim  is  that  of  knowledge. 
The  knowledge  purpose  in  education  has  been  to  acquire 
knowledge.  Very  often  that  knowledge  has  been  for  its  o^m 
sake.  Under  this  aim,  the  mere  fact  of  knowing  things  con- 
stitutes its  own  reward — somewhat  after  the  old  exploded 
doctrine  of  ''Art  for  art's  sake."  Nor  has  it  made  much 
difference  under  this  aim,  just  what  knowledge  is  being 
attained.  Regardless  of  what  it  may  be,  ''Knowledge  is 
Power"  always.  And  even  if  it  isn't  then  the  mere  satis- 
faction of  knowing  is  its  own  imperishable  reward. 

It  is  especially  worthy  of  note,  that  the  knowledge  aim 
has  never  been  critical  about  its  content.  That  is  the  part 
about  this  aim  that  is  so  astounding.    There  is  no  necessary 


AND    THE    WOELD'S   ANSWER  71 

reason  whatever  why  the  knowledge  aim  of  education  should 
not  be  one  of  the  very  highest — providing  that  the  knowl- 
edge involved  is  the  raost  basic  to  human  life.  But 
knowledge  as  an  educational  aim  has  rarely  honored  in  this 
particular  way  the  name  with  which  it  has  christened  itself. 
It  seems  not  to  have  been  one  whit  more  critical  what  gets 
into  education  than  any  other  aim.  How  absurd  it  is  then, 
that  the  knowledge  aim  should  lay  claim  to  any  special 
sanctity !  If  this  aim  had  been  true  to  the  real  import  of 
its  name,  it  would  have  presented,  not  one  million  facts  out 
of  a  million — and  not  necessarily  even  one  fact  out  of  a 
million — but  if  necessary  would  have  gone  out  on  an  in- 
finite excursion  into  the  innermost  recesses  of  life,  in  order 
possibly  to  be  able  to  get  one  fact  out  of  a  trillion  that 
might  be  worthj^  of  presentation  to  mankind — a  thing  which 
education  has  by  no  means  done. 

To  be  sure,  the  knowledge  aim  has  made  some  inquiry. 
Among  others,  Butler  has  inquired  ''what  knowledge  is  of 
most  worth."  He  says:  "The  highest  and  most  enduring 
knowledge  is  of  the  things  of  the  spirit That  knowl- 
edge is  of  most  worth  which  stands  in  the  closest  relation  to 
the  highest  forms  of  the  activity  of  that  spirit  which  is 
created  in  the  image  of  Him  who  holds  Nature  and  man 
alike  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand."^^ 

No  one  could  of  course  question  the  truth  of  what  But- 
ler says.  But  he  is  vastly  too  general.  Nowhere  does  he 
show  in  a  striking  analytical  manner  just  how  we  are  to 
make  contact  with  ' '  things  of  the  spirit. "  In  no  mj^sterious 
and  miraculous  manner  are  we  ever  going  to  attain  to  such 
knowledge  merely  by  talking  about  it  and  recommending  it. 
What  Butler  must  do  is  to  show  us  the  road.  And  this  he 
fails  to  do — chiefly  due  to  the  fact  in  my  opinion  that  he 
himself  neither  sees  nor  knows  how.  Like  many  another 
educator,  Butler  has  failed  to  penetrate  critically  into  the 
deep  sub-cellars  of  human  life.  Therefore,  his  recommen- 
dations as  to  the  highest  type  of  knowledge  fall  markedly 
short. 


1"  Nicholas  Murray  Butler:   The  Meaning  of  Education,  pages  57 
and  70. 


72  THE  PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

Again,  Tate  says  that,  ''One  great  end  of  education  is 
to  communicate  to  the  pupil  that  sort  of  knowledge  which 
is  most  likely  to  be  useful  to  him  in  the  sphere  of  life  which 
Providence  has  assigned  him".^^  Once  more,  nothing  could 
be  truer.  But  I  inquire :  Just  exactly  what  is  that  knowl- 
edge— and  just  as  precisely,  how  is  it  going  to  be  communi- 
cated? Tate  fails  to  tell  us.  The  mice  in  the  fable  were 
specifically  concrete  when  they  recommended  in  convention 
assembled  the  tying  of  a  bell  around  the  cat*s  neck  as  a 
warning  signal  to  them  of  the  approach  of  the  cat.  Our 
knowledge  advocates  are  by  no  means  so  specific.  Nowhere 
are  their  suggestions  equal  to  the  bell  plan  of  the  mice — 
even  though  the  mice  did  overlook  one  little  link  in  their 
chain.  My  inquiry  of  education  is  this:  In  the  field  of 
knowledge,  what  is  the  bell?  "Where  is  it?  And  who  is 
going  to  tie  it  about  the  cat^s  neck?     That  is  my  question. 

As  Rousseau  has  said,  ''Knowledge  as  an  end  in  itself  is 
an  unfathomable  and  shoreless  ocean.  Human  intelligence 
has  its  limits.  We  can  neither  know  everything,  nor  be 
thoroughly  familiar  with  the  little  that  other  men  know. 
"We  have  to  select  what  is  to  be  taught,  as  well  as  the  time 
for  learning  it.  Of  the  kinds  of  knowledge  within  our 
power,  some  are  false,  some  useless,  some  serve  only  to 
foster  pride.  Only  the  few  that  really  conduce  to  our  well 
being  are  worthy  of  a  study  of  a  wise  man,  or  by  a  youth 
intended  to  be  a  wise  man.  The  question  is  not,  what  may 
be  known,  but  what  will  be  of  the  most  use  when  it  is 
known.  "^« 

No  general  guide  could  possibly  be  safer,  yet  Rousseau 
fails  (though  excusably)  to  detail  in  any  complete  way  what 
that  knowledge  must  be.  Of  course,  it  is  true  that  the  world 
of  education  has  always  been  employing  that  knowledge 
which  they  think  useful  in  one  way  or  another.  Presumably 
their  plan  has  been  at  all  times  to  deal  only  in  the  highest 
type  of  knowledge.     I  admit  that  the  intentions  have  no 

1®  Quoted  from  Putnam :  Manual  of  Pedagogics,  page  16. 
^^  J.  J.  Eousseau :    Emile,  Trans.  Worthington,  from  extracts  J. 
Steeg,  pp.  122-3. 


AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  73 

doubt  been  good.  But  that  is  no  acceptable  excuse.  The 
cold,  staring  fact  is,  that  mountains  of  inferior  knowledge 
have  ever  been  operative.  Never  has  that  knowledge  which 
is  most  useful  to  human  life  been  taught — in  spite  of  what 
this  advocate  or  that  advocate  may  have  thought  about  it. 

The  knowledge  aim  of  education  has,  therefore,  failed 
the  world — though  nothing  at  all  has  been  wrong  with  the 
aim,  per  se.  Indeed,  no  aim  could  be  higher — if  that  aim 
understood  itself  in  relation  to  the  deep  realities  of  human 
life,  which  it  has  not  done,  owing  to  the  fact  that  knowledge 
right  along  has  been  taking  entirely  too  much  pride  in  itself, 
and  because  of  itself  as  an  ultimate  end.  "It  is  not  knowl- 
edge, as  such,  but  in  feeling  and  action  that  reality  is 
given  "^° — a  fact  which  has  largely  been  missed  by  the 
knowledge  aim  right  along,  even  in  many  of  those  cases 
where  the  knowledge  involved  is  of  the  right  type. 

In  fine,  I  would  say  that  the  knowledge  aim  in  educa- 
tion has  failed  in  at  least  two  directions :  First,  the  knowl- 
edge dealt  with  has  been  too  often  of  the  wrong  kind ;  and, 
second,  the  aim  has  been  too  largely,  not  what  might  be 
done  with  the  knowledge  attained,  but  merely  for  the  sake 
of  knowing — decorative  rather  than  functional — overlook- 
ing the  important  fact  that,  per  se,  knowledge  is  not  neces- 
sarily power  at  all.  In  other  words,  the  knowledge  aim 
stands  out  as  one  that  has  never  been  subjected  to  critical 
analysis  by  its  advocates. 

4.  Preparation  for  Life. 

This  is  another  aim  which  has  obtained  in  education. 
The  pages  of  educational  literature  have  been  liberally 
sprinkled  from  age  to  age  with  expressions  like  the  follow- 
ing: ''Education  is  the  preparation  for  complete  living. "^^ 
"I  call  a  complete  and  generous  education  that  which  fits 
a  man  to  perform  justly,  skillfully  and  magnanimously  all 
the  offices,  both  public  and  private,  of  peace  and  war."^^ 

20  A.  Seth:  Man's  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  page  122. 

21  Herbert  Spencer :  Education,  chapter  1. 

22 John  Milton.     Quoted  from  Putnam:    Manual   of  Pedagogics, 
page  16, 


74          THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

''Education  should  be  preparation  for  life,  domestic,  eco- 
nomic, social,  politica'l. "^^  ''The  aim  of  life  is  living  hap- 
pily and  beautifully. '  '^^ 

Against  such  expressions,  no  one  could  raise  one  word 
of  objection — as  far  as  their  innate  truth  is  concerned.  But 
when  it  comes  to  that  precise  and  pointed  treatment  neces- 
sary to  show  just  what  "complete  living"  is,  and  exactly 
how  it  shall  be  attained — then  the  story  is  far  different. 
Nowhere  in  Spencer,  Milton,  Mann  or  Aristotle  is  there  to 
be  found  a  formula  for  complete  living,  much  less  its  path 
of  attainment.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  in  many 
ways  Spencer  has  laid  down  some  very  specific  things  for 
the  educational  world  to  follow — but  unfortunately,  many 
of  the  splendid  things  said  by  Spencer  have  fallen  upon 
deaf  ears. 

As  to  the  aim  itself,  certainly  nothing  could  be  sounder 
than  the  thought  of  preparation  for  life.  The  term  is  a 
happy  one — as  far  as  a  large,  general,  outlying  observation 
is  concerned.  But  as  a  specific  and  technical  embodiment  of 
educational  aim,  it  falls  short.  It  is  somewhat  like  saying 
that  the  aim  in  building  a  house  is  to  construct  one  in  which 
we  can  live  comfortably — which  is  true,  and  yet  exactly 
what  everyone  would  expect  without  saying  it.  Such  cate- 
gories of  generalized  observation  can  never  satisfy  that  life 
necessity  whose  only  sustaining  food  is  truth,  actual,  spe- 
cific and  pertinent. 

Educators  must  remember  that  their  function  is  that  of 
finding  the  last  words  in  educational  science — the  last  notes 
of  world-enthralling  harmony  for  a  longing  and  discordant 
humanity.  That  is  the  function  of  the  educator.  It  is  not 
the  function  of  some  lay  member  on  the  street.  The  edu- 
cational leader  must  be  concrete,  specific,  profound.  The 
wisest  general  observation  that  could  ever  fall  from  the  lips 
of  a  man  might  be  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  curtain  shut- 
ting off  completely  the  very  world  of  truth  which  it  in- 

23 Horace  Mann.  Quoted  from  Davidson:  History  of  Education 
(1901). 

24  Aristotle:  Politics,  iii.,  9,  14. 


AND    THE    WORLD'S   ANSWER  75 

tended  to  reveal,  and  might  reveal,  providing  that  that  one 
general  observation  were  divided  up  into  a  thousand  bits  of 
concrete  and  ultimate  truth. 

It  is  on  the  same  old  altar  of  broad,  sweeping,  glitter- 
ing generalization  that  the  advocates  of  "preparation  for 
life"  permit  the  banners  of  education  to  trail  eternally  in 
the  dust.  It  is  the  same  old  scaffold  which  has  always  swung 
the  same  old  fatal  noose.  It  is  the  same  old  cross  on  which 
education  has  always  been  crucified.  It  is  the  cross  of  gen- 
eralization, born  of  a  paltry,  petty  perception  on  the  part 
of  those  whom  the  world  would  accept  and  acclaim  as  its 
educational  leaders.  Let  us  engrave  deeply  on  our  minds 
that  nothing  is  ever  going  to  spring  heaven-born  from  any 
phrase — not  even  from  such  an  alluring  one  as  preparation 
for  life.  Educational  aims  are  by  no  means  automata  that 
are  going  to  propel  themselves.  The  good  right  arm  crank 
of  microscopic  analysis  is  the  minimum  essential  of  every 
educational  aim — no  matter  what  that  aim  may  be.  The 
aim  in  itself  amounts  to  nothing  as  a  mere  month  piece. 
The  extent  and  accuracy  of  the  invested  analysis  lying  back 
of  that  aim — that  is  the  thing  that  counts.  Both  the  spirit 
and  the  substance  of  an  aim  are  demanded.  No  mere  w^ord 
jugglery  is  going  to  go  with  mankind  when  it  comes  to 
dealing  with  the  great,  hidden  truths  of  education. 

I  am  compelled,  therefore,  to  say  that  while  preparation 
for  life  is  a  capital  theme  about  which  to  build  educational 
purpose — education  has  ignominiously  failed  to  go  on  with 
its  building.  Once  more  we  are  forced  to  say:  ** Weighed 
in  the  balance  and  found  wanting." 

5.  Adjustment. 

Education  as  adjustment  to  environment  has  been  a  con- 
spicuous thought  in  educational  circles  for  at  least  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century.  The  thought  itself  is  a  good  one.  It 
adds  to  education  the  concept  of  plasticity,  movement,  modi- 
fication. The  individual  who  would  be  educated  must  have 
such  a  view  of  life  as  to  be  able  to  adapt  himself  and  his  con- 
duct to  different  conditions  which  may  be  encountered.     In 


76  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

a  rough  way,  the  thought  is,  ''When  in  Rome,  do  as  the 
Romans  do."  As  times  and  environments  change,  man 
must  change.  New  conditions  must  be  met  in  new  ways. 
Such  is  the  meaning  of  the  educational  aim  of  adjustment — 
and  it  thus  constitutes  a  new  and  decidedly  worth-while 
thought  in  education. 

But  as  an  educational  aim — ^like  any  other  aim — it  can- 
not be  anything  ultimate  merely  because  of  itself.  Every- 
thing must  depend  on  how  its  advocates  take  that  aim  and 
analyze  it  into  a  thousand  different  threads — or  a  million — 
or  until  such  time  as  every  avenue  of  human  life  is  taken 
care  of.  Merely  to  chatter  the  word  ''adjustment"  will 
never  get  us  any  place.  Nor  will  dealing  with  it  lightly 
and  incompletely  ever  deliver  humanity  from  the  bondage 
and  darkness  of  ignorance  obtaining  in  daily  life.  Our 
treatment  of  adjustment  must  be  vital,  basic,  complete. 
Especially  must  adjustment  take  in  those  principles  that 
are  most  bed-rock  in  the  guidance  and  development  of  every 
individual. 

Now,  outside  of  the  very  good  concept  itself,  the  adjust- 
ment aim  has  added  but  very  little  to  education.  It  has  not 
gotten  us  appreciably  closer  to  things  ultimate  in  education. 
It  has  made  no  penetrating  analysis  of  the  great  human 
problem.  This  is  not  at  all  because  of  any  weakness  in  the 
aim  itself — but  because  of  the  same  conditions  that  have  ob- 
tained in  every  other  aim  ever  set  forth  in  education :  Its  ad- 
vocates have  deserted  their  quarry.  The  wonderful  mines 
lying  just  beyond  have  never  been  prospected.  The  great  trail 
of  adjustment  has  been  forsaken — just  as  it  was  approach- 
ing the  first  fringes  of  brushes  surrounding  the  forest 
where  the  real  treasures  lay  hidden.  Those  who  have  talked 
about  adjustment  have  hardly  scratched  the  surface  of 
their  field. 

We  must  remember  again  for  the  thousandth  time  that 
there  is  positively  nothing  magical  at  all  about  the  mere 
wording  of  any  aim.  There  is  in  the  adjustment  aim,  ex- 
actly what  we  inject  into  it — and  nothing  more.  We  must 
demand  that  every  educational  aim  open  up  its  suit  case — 


AND   THE   WOELD'S  ANSWER  77 

and  let  us  see  what  it  has  inside.  When  this  test  is  ap- 
plied, it  is  found  that  the  typical  educational  aim  consists 
of  a  suit  case  that  is — empty. 

And  the  champions  of  adjustment  have  largely  fallen 
into  that  same  old  pitfall.  Authors  who  have  written  on 
this  subject  have  missed  the  opportunity  of  their  lives — ^by 
quitting  before  ever  getting  started.  Nowhere  under  ad- 
justment literature  is  there  to  be  found  anything  like  a 
keen  analysis  of  the  aim  being  treated.  No  writer  on  adjust- 
ment has  yet  begun  to  perceive  deeply  enough  to  fathom 
those  wonderful  fields  in  which  adjustment  is  so  sorely 
needed.  The  very  domains  wherein  a  world  of  wealth  is 
offered  across  the  counters  of  adjustment — into  those  do- 
mains *' adjustment"  advocates  have  not  penetrated  at  all 
Yea,  hardly  have  they  even  headed  in  that  direction. 

Then  too  I  might  point  out  that  very  often  education 
consists,  not  in  adjustment  to  environment — but  rather  in 
a  deliberate  refusal  to  adjust  to  environment.  Had  Wen- 
dell Phillips  adjusted  himself  to  his  environment,  the 
world 's  greatest  agitator  would  never  have  been  heard  of — 
and  instead  of  standing  out  as  one  of  the  great  giants  of 
the  age,  he  would  have  become  a  petty,  grovelling  non-entity 
of  a  diplomat.  In  fact  every  great  man  in  history  has  been 
more  of  a  non-adjuster  to  environment,  than  an  adjuster. 
Men  like  Socrates,  Plato,  Jesus,  Bruno,  Savanarola,  Huss, 
Columbus,  Galileo,  Copernicus,  Tolstoi — and  a  legion  of 
others — owe  their  monumental  strength  and  worth  very 
largely  to  the  fact  that  they  openly  refused  to  adjust  them- 
selves to  the  existing  world  environments  in  which  they 
found  themselves.  Had  Socrates  been  an  ''adjuster"  he 
would  have  humbled  every  holy  principle  known  to  man. 
He  would  have  avoided  the  cup  of  hemlock — but  every  cup 
of  hemlock  in  the  world  from  that  day  to  this  would  in  con- 
sequence thereof  be  just  that  much  more  bitter.  Socrates 
by  virtue  of  his  non-adjustment  did  much  to  temper  the 
poison  that  still  obtains  in  this  world — and  the  same  is  true 
of  that  great  army  of  souls  everywhere,  and  in  every  age, 
who  have  so  gloriously  refused  to  align  themselves  in  silence 
with  existing  orders  that  have  been  wrong. 


78        THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

This  then  is  perhaps  one  department  of  adjustment 
which  has  never  been  touched  upon  by  any  of  its  advocates. 
The  issue  which  I  raise  might  be  called  the  negative  side  of 
adjustment.  There  is  of  course  no  reason  at  all  why  it 
should  not  be  included  under  the  general  term  of  adjust- 
ment. The  aim  is  sufficiently  broad  to  include  it — providing 
that  its  champions  point  that  fact  out.  But  advocates  of 
adjustment  have  apparently  failed  to  see  all  around  their 
subject — to  say  nothing  of  not  having  seen  down  into  it 
deeply. 

6.  Unfoldment.. 

This  doctrine  as  a  purpose  of  education  goes  back  to 
other  days.  As  literally  stated,  it  involves  "The  full  and 
harmonious  development  of  all  of  our  faculties."  Plato 
himself  may  be  accepted  as  one  of  the  chief  contributors  to 
the  idea,  though  from  time  to  time  other  educational  leaders 
have  dwelt  upon  it.  This  aim  rivets  attention  upon  the 
thought  of  self-realization  on  the  part  of  the  individual — 
or  on  the  unfoldment  of  faculties  or  powers  innate  within 
the  individual.  I  look  upon  this  aim  as  being  incomparably 
the  most  basic  technical  pronouncement  ever  made  in  the 
history  of  education. 

But  its  great  significance  has  so  entirely  escaped  our 
modern  educators  that  they  have  completely  repudiated  it. 
Plato  laid  the  principle  down — and  he  also  elaborated  most 
wonderfully  upon  it — and  yet  this  rare  educational  gem  has 
been  kicked  about  from  century  to  century  by  educators  who 
have  not  understood.  A  thousand  and  one  critics  have 
spoken  out  boldly — most  of  them  picking  up  their  cues  from 
the  dense  perceptions  and  the  foggy  prejudices  of  others — 
and  not  a  single  one  of  them  has  ever  gone  down  to  original 
bedrock  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  what  the  unfoldment  aim 
is  all  about.  It  would  be  an  eminently  safe  wager  that  out 
of  one  thousand  critics  who  have  set  Plato's  unfoldment 
doctrine  aside  with  a  mere  wave  of  the  hand,  or  else  who 
have  merely  accepted  it — not  a  solitary  one  of  them  has 
ever  actually,  carefully  and  inquiringly  read  his  Republic 


AND   THE   WORLD'S   ANSWER  79 

and  his  Laws  from  beginning  to  end.  They  may  have 
skimmed  and  skipped  around  through  those  two  marvelous 
works  in  a  cursory  survey  that  was  impelled  and  animated 
by  false  and  superficial  perceptions  to  begin  with — but  the 
books  themselves,  they  have  never  read — or,  if  they  actually 
did  read  them,  then  they  were  not  competent  to  read  them. 
And,  in  either  or  any  event,  twenty-three  centuries  of  the 
unfoldment  doctrine  has  been  but  the  casting  of  pearls  be- 
fore swine — for  the  world  has  not  grasped  or  understood 
that  mighty  master. 

There  is  perhaps  no  way  in  which  the  educational  atti- 
tude toward  unfoldment  can  better  be  showTi  than  by  quo- 
ting the  following  adverse  words  from  W.  T.  Harris,  once 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Education:  ''It  has  been 
fashionable  in  educational  treatises  since  the  days  of  Pes- 
talozzi  to  define  the  province  of  education  as  *  The  full  and 
harmonious  development  of  all  our  faculties/  This  is, 
however,  a  survival  of  Rousseauism,  and,  like  all  survivals 

from  that  source,  is  very  dangerous It  fancies  man 

the  individual  to  be  something  complete  in  himself  and 
without  relation  to  society.  Man  has  two  selves:  one  his 
natural  self  as  a  puny  individual ;  the  other  the  higher  self 
embodied  in  institutions.  This  is  the  worst  defect  in  the 
definition,  because  it  leads  the  educator  away  from  the  es- 
sential idea  of  education,  which  is  this:  Education  is  the 
preparation  of  the  individual  for  reciprocal  union  with 
society ;  the  preparation  of  the  individual  so  that  he  can  help 
his  fellow-men,  and  in  turn  receive  and  appropriate  their 
help".-^ 

Now,  in  my  opinion,  there  is  to  be  found  nowhere  in  all 
educational  literature  a  more  one-sided,  a  more  short-sighted 
or  a  more  erroneous  comment  than  just  the  above.  "Wliat  a 
tragedy  that  education  has  had  such  non-illumined  lead- 
ership !  No  place  does  either  Plato  or  Eousseau  even  infer 
in  even  the  remotest  manner  in  any  way  whatsoever  that 
man  the  individual  is  ''something  complete  in  himself  and 

25  W.  T.  Harris.  Quoted  from  Putnam:  Mamial  of  Pedagogies, 
pages  14-15. 


80  THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

without  relation  to  society."  Indeed,  both  of  these  great 
men  have  definitely  recorded  themselves  to  the  exact  con- 
trary— in  proof  of  which  I  shall  quote  as  follows,  from 
Rousseau  first :  ' '  A  father  when  he  brings  his  children  into 
existence  and  supports  them,  has,  in  so  doing,  fulfilled  only 
a  third  part  of  his  task.  To  the  human  race  he  owes  men ; 
to  society,  men  fitted  for  society;  to  the  State,  citizens. 
Every  man  who  can  pay  this  triple  debt,  and  does  not,  is 
a  guilty  man".-^  Let  the  reader  now  judge  for  himself  the 
justice  of  the  criticism  by  Harris. 

As  for  Plato,  the  very  spirit  and  substance  of  every  line 
that  he  ever  wrote  on  education  is  teeming  with  the  doc- 
trine of  social  service.  The  best  way  to  prove  this  is  to  let 
Plato  speak  for  himself:  ''Then  as  soon  as  they  are  fifty 
years  old  ....  and  have  won  distinction  in  every  branch, 
whether  of  action  or  of  science  ....  and  though  they  are 
to  spend  most  of  their  time  in  philosophical  pursuits,  yet, 
each  when  his  turn  comes  is  to  devote  himself  to  the  hard 
duties  of  public  life,  and  hold  office  for  their  country's 


Now,  note  carefully  that  even  after  the  age  of  fifty,  each 
individual  is  to  hold  himself  ever  ready  for  ''the  hard 
duties  of  public  life. "  I  emphasize  that  this  is  after  the  age 
of  fifty.  But  note  carefully  again  that  hefore  the  age  of 
fifty,  each  individual  was  to  have  ' '  won  distinction  in  every 
branch,  whether  of  action  or  of  science  ".^^ 

Now,  I  say  that  in  the  face  of  such  facts  it  is  simply 
amazing  that  education  should  be  so  studded  with  expres- 
sions of  the  type  given  voice  to  by  Harris.  I  regard  it  as 
nothing  short  of  educational  tragedy  that  any  educational 
leader  should  be  so  far  from  the  truth  as  to  shout  to  all  the 
world  that  "all  survivals  from  that  source  (Rousseauism) 
are  very  dangerous."  The  trouble  with  most  of  the  critics 
of  Plato  and  Rousseau  has  been  that  they  have  not  carried 
into  their  criticisms  any  profound  degree  of  educational  in- 

26  J.  J.  Rousseau :  Emile,  pages  22-3. 

27  Plato:  Republic,  Davies  &  Vaughan  trans.  (1914),  Macmillan 
&  Co.,  page  268. 


AND   THE  WOELD'S   ANSWER  81 

sight.  I  assert  that  the  doctrine  of  harmomoiis  unfoldment 
is  the  most  fundamental  purpose  that  has  ever  been  pro- 
pounded in  the  whole  field  of  education — and  I  shall  prove 
it  later  on. 

But  before  going  on  to  that  task  I  desire  to  quote  further 
in  this  same  field.  Hailman  in  developing  the  purpose  of 
education  says  this:  ''Life  is  a  process  of  self-realization; 
the  innermost  essence  of  life  is  the  instinct  of  self-expan- 
sion."^^ Hailman  is  correct.  But  he  does  not  begin  to  go 
far  enough.  He  lays  down  a  sound  proposition — and  then 
he  stops  stock-still. 

And  yet  against  the  words  of  Hailman,  exception  is 
voiced  by  0  'Shea,  who  comments  as  follows :  * '  People  who 
see  the  child  in  this  light  fix  their  gaze  on  spiritual  heights 
which  they  feel  he  is  destined  to  attain,  rather  than  on  the 
child  himself.  Such  persons  cannot  bring  themselves  to  re- 
gard the  mind  as  given  to  man  to  enable  him  to  attain  the 
greatest  amount  of  pleasure  and  reduce  pain  to  the  mini- 
mum in  the  world  in  which  he  is  placed.  They  consider  this 

to  be  an  ignoble  conception  of  the  human  mind So 

they  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that  the  purpose  of  education 
is  to  afford  opportunity  for  the  expansion,  as  it  were,  of 
those  ideal  attributes  which  are  possessed  in  embryo  at  the 
start,  to  supply  the  conditions  by  which  they  may  become 
*  realized.'  ....  Browning  expresses  this  conception  when 
he  makes  Paracelsus  say : 

'Truth  is  within  ourselves;  it  takes  no  rise 
From  outward  things,  whatever  you  may  believe. 
There  is  an  inmost  center  in  us  all, 
Where  truth  abides  in  fulness;  and  around, 
Wall  upon  wall,  the  gross  flesh  hems  it  in, 

This  perfect,  clear  conception 

....  And   to   know, 
Rather  consists  in  opening  out  a  way 
Whence  this  imprisoned  splendor  may  escape, 
Than  in  effecting  entry  for  a  light 
Supposed  to  be  without.^ "  ^^ 

28  Proe.  N.  E.  A.,  1899,  page  584. 

29  M.  V.  O'Shea:  Education  as  Adjustment,  pages  66-7. 
6 


82  THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

In  the  above  comment,  0  'Shea  misses  the  mark  entirely. 
He  comes  so  far  from  perceiving  the  tremendous  meaning 
and  significance  of  the  doctrine  of  unfoldment — or  self- 
realization — or  harmonious  development — that  he  nowhere 
makes  a  single  point  of  contact  with  the  facts  in  the  case. 
Nor  is  O'Shea  even  approximately  right  when  he  quotes 
Browning  as  illustrative  material  for  the  doctrine  in  ques- 
tion. Browning  is  dealing  with  a  question  of  psychology, 
or  the  actual  basis  of  knowledge,  while  the  doctrine  of  un- 
foldment touches  in  no  way  whatever  on  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  knowledge. 

And  thus  I  might  quote  at  great  length,  showing  that  the 
centuries  have  either  completely  rejected  the  master  mind  of 
Plato,  or  else  have  done  something  equally  outrageous, 
namely :  Accepted  him  and  chattered  his  words  with  about 
as  much  understanding  as  a  cageful  of  parrots.  The  final 
and  outstanding  result  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  as  far 
as  education  in  concerned,  Plato  might  just  as  well  never 
have  lived.  The  name  Plato  has  simply  served  to  make 
educational  writers  think  themselves  sage  and  scholarly  by 
decorating  their  works  therewith — either  in  the  Aesop  fable 
capacity  of  taking  a  kick  at  a  dead  lion,  or  else  in  the  ca- 
pacity of  eulogizing  Plato  without  as  much  as  understanding 
what  the  man  stood  for  at  all.  It  is  on  either  one  of  these 
two  barren  highways  of  the  centuries  that  the  world  *s  great- 
est educational  genius  has  been  lost. 

Conclusion. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  let  us  see  what  we  have  been 
about.  We  have  been  considering  the  world 's  answer  to  the 
following  most  important  question,  namely:  What  is  the 
purpose  of  education?  All  told,  the  world's  six  great 
answers  have  been  briefly  reviewed.  Per  se,  there  is  not  a 
single  blame-worthy  aim  among  them,  save  in  part  the  first 
one  treated — Formal  Discipline.  With  the  other  five,  the 
whole  trouble  has  been  that  educators  have  not  analyzed 
them.  They  have  injected  nothing  into  them.  They  have 
been  content  with  mere  general  phrases,  high  sounding  in 


ANT>   THE   WOELD'S   ANSWER  83 

nature.  The  result  is,  that  the  world 's  answer  to  the  great- 
est question  in  all  education  is  merely  an  aim  clothed  in 
loose  fitting  words — and  a  mere  word  aim  counts  for  noth- 
ing. The  only  thing  that  can  possibly  count  in  any  aim 
is  the  thousand  ultimate  threads  into  which  the  aim  itself  is 
finally  unravelled.  The  educational  world  has  failed  to  dig 
down  deeply  into  that  unravelling  process.  It  has  been  hyp- 
noticly  scratching  the  surface  of  things  for  centuries.  For 
this  reason,  aims  which  might  become  monumental  in  their 
importance,  merely  rest  today  in  the  ashes  of  their  own 
ruin — the  ruin  of  decay. 

I  assert,  therefore,  that  education  is  adrift.  It  is  totally 
without  an  aim  that  is  at  the  same  time  specific  and  ultimate. 
And  for  the  whole  unfortunate  state  of  affairs  I  blame  a 
legion  of  educational  leaders  that  are  without  eyes.  Per- 
ception in  education  has  all  hut  gone  into  hanlcruptcy. 

In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  lay  the  foundation  of  my  ot\ti 
answer  to  this  same  question,  namely :  What  is  the  purpose 
of  education? 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 
AND  MY  OWN  ANSWER 

The  question  before  us  at  this  time  is  the  same  question 
that  occupied  our  attention  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
namely:  What  is  the  purpose  of  education?  But  there  is 
this  difference  between  the  present  chapter  and  the  preced- 
ing one :  Whereas  we  have  just  finished  a  consideration  of 
the  world's  various  answers  to  this  question,  my  own  ans- 
wer to  this  same  question  is  now  to  be  introduced. 

Before  proceeding,  however,  it  might  be  well  to  empha- 
size the  fact  once  more  that  my  quarrel  with  education  in 
the  field  of  purpose  is,  that  education  is  so  obsessed  with 
the  malady  of  shallow  diagnosis  and  surface  generalization 
that  it  never  gets  down  to  principles  that  are  bed-rock  and 
ultimate.  Education  has  perceived  the  great  problem  of 
human  life  so  lightly  and  so  loosely  that  its  educational  pur- 
poses have  utterly  failed  to  satisfy  the  deep-seated  and  in- 
stinctive cries  of  a  suffering  mankind.  Among  other  un- 
atonable delinquencies  it  has  completely  missed  the  glorious 
life  message  which  Plato  has  been  holding  out  in  his  hand 
across  the  stretch  of  twenty-three  centuries  of  time — ^and  I 
repeat  it  once  more,  over  and  over  again,  that  the  sin  and 
tragedy  of  that  educational  iniquity  is  the  fact  that  educa- 
tional leaders  have  neglected  to  perceive  deeply  their 
problem.  They  have  failed  to  carry  a  critically  searching 
attitude  and  analysis  into  their  work.  In  other  words,  as 
detectives  and  guardians  of  the  common  welfare  of  hu- 
manity, they  have  been  innocently  and  unwittingly  asleep. 
That  is  the  one  basis  of  my  dispute  with  the  educational 
world — its  poverty  of  perception — its  infirmity  of  feeble 
analysis. 

Now,  very  naturally,  since  I  thus  accuse  education  in 

84 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWEE  85 

the  above  terms,  and  along  the  above  lines,  it  shall  be  my 
aim  at  least  not  to  fall  into  the  same  pit.  My  search  shall 
be  for  ultimate  principles  and  fundamental  truth.  No  mere 
conditions  and  contingencies  and  appearances  shall  be  per- 
mitted to  parade  themselves  in  the  place  thereof  for  a  min- 
ute. Our  problem  demands  that  it  be  analyzed  in  the  most 
scrutinizing  manner — and  that  the  results  of  all  analj^sis  be 
given  to  the  world  in  just  as  concrete  and  just  as  detailed  a 
manner  as  it  is  possible  to  do.  It  is  my  aim  and  hope  to  do 
that  very  thing  before  we  get  through.  That  is  a  work, 
however,  all  of  which  cannot  possibly  be  attempted  in  the 
present  chapter.  What  is  offered  in  this  chapter  will  con- 
stitute but  a  beginning  of  my  answer  to  the  question  which 
was  first  propounded  in  chapter  three.  It  will  require  all 
of  the  remaining  chapters  of  this  book  to  complete  my  ans- 
wer to  that  question. 

It  now  becomes,  therefore,  my  solemn  and  serious  duty 
to  state  my  answer  to  the  world.  I  say  that  the  purpose  of 
education  is  this,  namely:  To  guarantee  the  hiological  in- 
tegrity  of  the  individual.  This  may  seem  like  another 
high-sounding  generalization  added  to  the  educational  lit- 
erature of  the  human  race — but  wait  until  I  get  through ; 
and  then  biological  integrity  will  be  seen  to  be  the  one  sim- 
ple and  ultimate  educational  note  for  which  all  human  crea- 
tion has  been  blindly  but  instinctively  crying  for  ages.  Let 
us  proceed  with  our  analysis. 

First  of  all,  the  purpose  of  education  does  not  rest  on  the 
side  of  social  considerations  at  all — never!  It  is  on  this 
social  plane  that  educational  leaders  have  wandered  so  far 
away — leaders  who  have  never  been  able  to  distinguish  be- 
tween means  and  ends.  The  purpose  of  education  must  ever 
be  to  develop  the  soundest  individual  in  every  conceivable 
way.  From  this,  there  can  be  absolutely  no  appeal  what- 
ever. Our  aim  must  point  eternally  toward  the  best  indi- 
vidual. That  one  thought  must  be  the  very  heart  of  edu- 
cational consciousness.  But  the  very  moment  that  the  fun- 
damental aim  points  in  the  direction  of  social  good,  then 
that  moment  will  the  sacred  and  basic  demands  of  the  in- 


86  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

dividual  be  swamped  into  complete  oblivion — exactly  the 
condition  obtaining  in  education  today.  One  of  the  very 
first  implications,  therefore,  of  the  doctrine  of  biological 
integrity  is,  that  prevailing  educational  conceptions  must 
be  changed  directly  around — that  is,  society  must  be  thought 
of  as  only  the  means ,  instead  of  the  end;  while  the  indi- 
vidual must  be  thought  of  as  the  end,  instead  of  the  means. 
With  the  eye  rivetted  on  the  social  good,  the  span  is  so 
vast  that  the  individual  goes  down  into  unescapable  ruin — 
for  a  "social  good"  is  trying  to  be  produced  without  seeing 
the  real  individual  elements  that  are  prerequisite  thereto. 
That  is,  the  real  secret  of  all  social  good  is  overlooked — 
namely,  the  sound  individual  himself.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, social  efforts  and  social  schemes  and  social  panaceas 
and  social  theories  may  be  carried  out  to  the  thousandth  de- 
gree of  refinement — and  the  result  will  always  be  the  same : 
Human  chaos  and  catastrophe.  And  why  ?  Simply  because 
the  look  is  one  that  is  skyward,  outward  and  aggregate.  It 
will  not  be  unlike  the  spectacle,  for  example,  of  a  well  made 
and  well  polished  barrel,  but  in  spite  of  all  that,  well  filled 
with — rotten  apples.  I  would  point  out  that  the  way  to 
make  up  a  barrel  of  good  apples  is  not  at  all  to  be  blindly 
obsessed  with  the  generalized  notion  of  a  barrel  of  good 
apples  in  the  composite — ^but  rather  to  be  obsessed  with  the 
idea  of  knowing  in  its  minutest  detail  the  bed-rock  essentials 
necessary  for  the  making  of  one  good  individual  apple. 
Similarly,  in  the  building  of  a  house,  the  basic  thing  is  not 
the  blank  obsession  that  a  good  comfortable  house  must  be 
constructed — for  if  such  composite  formulas  constituted  the 
prime  condition  for  the  construction  of  good  houses,  then 
all  houses  would  be  good,  for  that  is  the  kind  of  a  house 
that  every  person  aims  to  build.  But  there  is  nothing  at 
all  basic  about  such  a  view — and  yet  it  is  exactly  that  ag- 
gregation view,  social  in  its  implications,  which  dominates 
education  today,  and  which  always  has.  Instead  of  such  a 
group  and  wholesale  view  of  things,  what  is  actually  re- 
quired when  it  comes  to  the  building  of  our  perfect  house 
is,  that  intelligent  attention  be  unfalteringly  rivetted  upon 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  87 

what  constitutes  perfection  in  the  thousand  details  or  in- 
dividualities that  must  be  present  in  the  ultimate  house. 

The  social  view  of  education  speaks  as  follows:  Let  us 
build  a  good  society.  Let  us  look  after  the  needs  of  group 
relations  and  interactions.  In  this  process  the  individual 
will  be  but  a  cog  in  our  great  complex  machine.  Society- 
will  be  the  end.  The  individual  will  be  the  means.  Let 
us  see  to  it  that  society  is  sound — that  social  needs  are 
uppermost  in  our  mind — and  in  such  a  society  the  indi- 
vidual will  have  to  be  all  right.  The  individual  himself 
must  live  for  the  good  of  our  society. 

Such  is  substantially  the  song  of  the  socialized  siren  of 
present-day  education.  That  doctrine  is  the  rankest  in- 
famy. I  denounce  it  with  all  the  vehemence  of  my  nature. 
In  the  first  place,  their  hypothesis  is  an  impossibility — an 
absurdity.  Nothing  could  be  more  monstrous  than  to 
babble  about  a  perfect  composite  in  any  field  without  first 
setting  down  as  point  number  one  the  perfection  of  all  the 
individualities  that  enter  into  that  composite.  As  well 
putter  and  sputter  about  producing  a  good  crop  of  fruit 
without  first  knowing  and  attending  to  the  fundamentals 
that  enter  into  the  making  of  one  good  single  tree.  The 
point  is,  that  a  good  crop  of  fruit  can  never  be  produced 
while  page  one  in  the  human  mind  is  "a  good  crop  of  fruit'* 
— never  as  long  as  time  endures.  Page  one  must  be  dedi- 
cated to  the  detailed  constitution  of  a  good  individual  tree. 

But  in  the  second  place,  the  social  view  of  education  is 
a  dangerous  opiate — because  it  puts  humanity  to  sleep,  and 
so  benumbs  the  senses  that  it  checks  all  search  for  indi- 
vidual prerequisites — that  is,  it  muzzles  both  the  desire  and 
the  perception  to  analyze.  It  leaves  one,  therefore,  with 
what  I  call  one  of  the  most  perilous  of  all  things — an  un- 
analyzed  ideal.  "Whenever  any  sjmthetic  composite  gets  into 
the  human  mind  it  is  always  a  menace — for  the  reason 
that  it  blinds  the  possessor,  and  thus  prevents  the  very 
essential  process  of  self-examination  into  that  ideal  or  com- 
posite, whatever  it  may  be.  LTnder  such  circumstances  the 
holder  of  aggregate  views  or  ideals  never  gets  beyond  them 


88  THE  PUKPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

— because  there  is  such  a  distinct  limit  to  the  span  of  hu- 
man attention  that  no  person  can  occupy  two  diametrically 
opposite  fieljds  of  thought  at  the  same  time — and,  further- 
more, the  mass  view  of  things  is  the  lazy  view,  since  it 
requires  no  analysis  of  any  kind  in  order  to  endure  and 
satisfy. 

Now  under  the  collective  view  of  educational  purpose, 
the  individual  is  lost  sight  of  completely.  He  is  crowded 
out.  It  could  not  be  otherwise,  for  the  consciousness  of 
education  is  cast  about  society  as  in  a  transfiguration.  We 
have  often  heard  the  statement,  for  example,  that  ''one 
could  not  see  the  town  for  the  houses.'^  I  would  a  million 
times  rather  it  be  that  way  than  that  one  could  not  see  the 
houses  for  the  town.  The  point  is,  that  we  always  see 
whatever  gets  into  consciousness — ^but  what  does  not  get 
into  consciousness,  that,  we  do  not  see.  I  claim  that  in  the 
social  view  of  education,  the  individual  is  never  in  con- 
sciousness at  all  in  any  significant  sense — and  for  this  rea- 
son the  individual  exists  in  the  world  as  about  so  much 
driftwood,  which  nobody  seems  to  own,  or  care  for,  or  pay 
much  attention  to.  That  is  why  I  say  that  the  world's 
aggregate  concepts,  its  unanalyzed  ideals,  and  its  synthetic 
composites  are  dangerous  things. 

Then  again,  let  us  expose  in  another  way  the  utter  folly 
of  that  view  of  education  which  would  make  society  the  end. 
For  what  does  government  exist  ?  We  are  told  that  govern- 
ment exists  for  the  good  of  the  governed.  Nowhere  is  it 
written  or  conceived  that  the  governed  exist  for  the  good 
of  the  government.  Think  then  of  the  vicious  absurdity  of 
that  notion  which  says  that  individuals  exist  for  the  good 
of  society !  Think  of  it !  I  say  that  society  must  exist  for 
the  good  of  the  individual — and  that  therefore  society  is 
not  the  end  of  human  effort — but  only  the  means.  The  in- 
dividual himself  must  consequently  be  the  ultimate  aim  of 
all  education — which  he  is  not  by  any  means  today.  It  is 
no  wonder,  therefore,  that  our  educational  leaders  have  suc- 
ceeded in  reversing  the  fundamental  order  of  human  affairs, 
leaving  us  today  with  individuals  whose  sole  reason  for 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  89 

being  is  the  good  of  society,  and  with  governed  who  exist 
for  the  good  of  the  government.  I  say  that  education  with 
its  mania  for  mass  interpretations  is  primarily  responsible 
for  the  fact  that  the  sacred  rights  and  essentials  of  sound 
individuality  have  gone  begging  down  through  the  centuries. 

And  right  here  before  going  further,  let  me  solemnly 
warn  any  future  critic  against  going  forth  with  the  cry  that 
I  am  standing  for  an  anti-social  or  a  non-social  education. 
Nowhere  do  I  say  one  single  word  against  the  social  element 
in  education.  I  simply  denounce  any  education  which  sets 
up  the  social  aim  as  our  basic,  ultimate  purpose.  That 
sacred  position  belongs  exclusively  to  the  individual.  This 
distinction  makes  it  necessary  to  exercise  great  care  in  dis- 
tinguishing between  our  goal  and  our  ladder.  Never  must 
society  set  itself  up  as  our  goal.  It  is  our  ladder  only — our 
means.  But  it  is  an  indispensable  means — and  for  this 
reason  our  education  must  be  extremely  social — indeed,  far 
more  social  than  it  has  ever  been  before.  We  shall  use  so- 
ciety to  the  fullest  possible  limit — not  for  itself,  but  as  a 
matchless  means  in  the  development  of  the  individual.  In 
that  capacity,  society  shall  be,  not  our  master  in  education, 
but  our  slave  and  our  servant.  This  word  of  warning  I 
merely  pause  to  utter  here  because  of  the  fact  that  percep- 
tion in  education  today  is  so  superficial  that  the  majority 
of  our  educational  leaders  would  not  otherwise  be  able  to 
detect  the  difference  between  denying  society  as  point  one, 
and  denying  it  altogether.  I  say  plainly  that  society  is 
point  two.    The  individual  himself  is  point  one. 

Now,  I  said  above  that  the  purpose  of  education  Is  io 
guarantee  the  biological  integrity  of  the  individual.  In  the 
explanation  of  this  aim  I  have  already  pointed  out  that  its 
first  implication  is,  that  it  turns  away  from  society  as  the 
ultimate  aim  of  education,  and  substitutes  therefor  the  in- 
dividual as  being  the  legitimate  final  criterion  of  educational 
purpose.  This  makes  society  only  the  means  of  education, 
while  the  individual  himself  becomes  the  end  of  education — 
or,  as  just  stated  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  the  individual 
becomes  point  one,  and  society  becomes  point  two. 


90  THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

But  our  explanation  thus  far  involves  merely  tlie  out- 
ward or  most  obvious  inference  conveyed  by  the  expression, 
to  guarantee  the  biological  integrity  of  the  individual.  The 
inner  significance  of  this  projected  purpose  of  education  has 
not  yet  been  touched  upon  at  all.  The  keystone  of  that  pur- 
pose is  imbedded  in  the  two  words — biological  integrity. 
Our  most  important  and  most  immediate  duty  is  to  arrive 
at  a  clear  and  careful  understanding  of  the  significance  of 
these  two  words  as  thus  employed.  Let  us  therefore  set 
ourselves  to  the  accomplishment  of  that  task. 

When  I  speak  of  biological  integrity  I  mean  to  project 
the  thought  that  the  most  basic  and  the  most  inalienable 
organic  right  of  every  individual  is  a  psychic  organization 
a7id  development  of  such  normal  stability  and  harmony  as 
to  guarantee  ojie's  own  undivided  and  unwavering  feeling 
of  self -justification  and  self -equality  in  his  own  eyes.  We 
have  all  heard  of  course  of  the  fact  that,  ' '  Self-preservation 
is  the  first  law  of  life. ' '  I  simply  ask :  Why  wouldn  't  that 
be  a  good  law  to  learn?  Everyone  will  reply:  ''Why,  it 
would — but  what  has  that  got  to  do  with  biological  in- 
tegrityf' 

That  is  the  very  question  that  I  wanted  somebody  to 
raise.  Down  deep  within  the  sub-cellars  of  being  is  a  long- 
ing cry — and  in  the  spirit  and  the  substance  of  that  cry  is 
at  once  hidden  and  revealed  the  secret  and  magical  essence 
of  the  very  soul  of  that  thing  which  the  world  for  so  many 
centuries  has  been  so  objectively  calling  self-preservation. 
That  cry  is  the  cry  for  the  very  psychic  state  of  attainment 
which  I  embody  in  biological  integrityy  and  which  I  have 
technically  elaborated  on  in  the  forty-one  italicized  words  in 
the  preceding  paragraph.  That  cry  is  the  cry  for  that 
deeply  ingrained  sense  of  self-sufficiency,  which  comes  only 
with  psychic  balance  and  mental  poise.  It  is  the  cry  for 
that  foundation  safety  for  which  every  organism  instinc- 
tively craves,  and  which  every  organism  at  the  same  time 
just  as  instinctively  recognizes  as  the  only  real  security  in 
all  life.  It  is  the  cry  for  undistur-bed  and  unruffled  con- 
sciousness— for  stable  equilibrium  within — for  unfeigned 


AND    MY   OWN  ANSWER  91 

naturalness — for  unflinching  courage — for  self-faith — for 
self-harmony — for  self -justification.  It  is  the  cry  for  calm 
in  those  deep  recesses  which  are  the  only  repositories  of 
power  in  all  the  Universe,  namely:  In  that  mind  where 
mental  harmony  reigns. 

That  cry  I  want  to  repeat  and  shout  it  out  from  the  very 
roof  of  the  world,  is  the  great  organic  voice  which  must  give 
to  us  our  one  unmistakable  clue  of  the  only  real  self-pre- 
servation under  all  heaven — that  self-preservation  which  I 
have  laid  down  and  summed  up  in  the  expression,  biological 
integrity —  in  other  words,  self-preservation  which  consists 
exclusively  of  each  organic  individual's  mental  attitude 
toward  himself  and  toward  the  outer  world.  The  meaning 
and  significance  of  self-preservation  therefore  rests  squarely 
upon  that  degree  of  psychic  security  and  psychic  ease  which 
an  individual  experiences  in  his  course  of  progression 
through  the  multitudinous  situations  and  contests  of  the 
world.  The  true  measure  of  all  self-preservation  must  con- 
sequently rest  solely  along  psychic  lines — ^whereas  the  world 
has  been  making  the  tragic  blunder  of  thinking  of  self- 
preservation  in  terms  of  physical  life. 

On  the  world's  basis  of  self-preservation,  every  person 
who  is  physically  alive  is  an  embodiment  of  the  principle 
— and  so  continues  up  to  the  moment  of  death,  for  up  to 
that  point  each  person  succeeds  in  the  battle  of  holding  on  to 
life.  But  I  say  that  such  a  notion  of  self-preservation  is  so 
totally  erroneous  and  superficial  that  it  misses  the  real 
import  and  energy  of  self-preservation  entirely.  The  fun- 
damental question  is  not  at  all  whether  or  not  an  individual 
is  dead  physically — but  whether  or  not  he  is  crushed  men- 
tally. 

This,  I  say,  is  the  only  basis  by  which  to  judge — ^the  only 
criterion  by  which  to  determine — ^the  only  scales  on  which  to 
measure — ^the  status  of  self-preservation  that  obtains  with 
any  individual.  Viewed  on  this  plane  of  understanding, 
how  different  our  story  of  life  becomes !  Instead  of  seeing 
self-preservation  holding  forth  in  the  lives  of  all  those  ''who 
live  and  move  and  have  their  being, ' '  we  behold  that  in  the 


92  THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

great  countless  millions  of  people  self-preservation  is  but 
an  endless  psychic  burning  at  the  stake,  beginning  almost 
at  the  very  cradle  itself,  and  extending  down  to  the  shades 
and  shadows  of  the  grave. 

And  why  do  I  say  this  ? 

Let  me  answer  that  question.  I  say  it  because  of  the 
calamitous  fact  that  the  principle  of  biologic al  integrity  has 
been  demolished  into  fragments. 

But  let  us  not  talk  in  parables — or  in  figures  of  any 
kind.  Our  soil  here  is  too  sacred  for  that.  We  must  speak 
so  that  the  whole  world  shall  understand.  We  must  be  so 
concrete  and  so  specific  that  when  we  shall  have  finished 
speaking  about  biological  integrity  that  expression  shall 
constitute  something  definite  and  something  unmistakable. 

Speaking  in  such  terms,  I  want  to  say  that  the  human 
mind  is  in  ruins.  It  represents  today  the  greatest  single 
piece  of  chaos  in  the  Universe.  It  is  one  vast  conservatory 
of  discord,  contradiction  and  controversy.  It  is  teeming 
with  the  chronic  conflict  of  clashing  emotions — and  it  is 
close  to  the  breaking  point  under  the  dangerous  pressure 
of  a  false  introspection  and  self-enforced  repression.  The 
human  mind  trembles  today  as  on  a  pivot.  Its  instability  is 
as  *'a  reed  shaken  in  the  wind.'' 

We  have  often  heard  it  said  that,  *'A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand."  This  is  truer  of  the  human 
mind  than  of  any  other  house  that  was  ever  constructed.  It 
is  equally  true  that  mankind  is  wrong  within  today.  The 
human  mind  is  divided  against  itself.  Its  various  phases 
or  inter-relations  or  faculties  have  not  been  fully  and  har- 
moniously developed  at  all.  In  the  process  of  education,  the 
human  mind  has  simply  happened.  It  has  literally  run 
riot — for  the  reason  that  education  has  been  blandly  en- 
gaged in  the  crystal-gazing  process  of  beholding  the  marvel- 
ous beauty  of  its  social  aims  at  work — being  too  busy  the 
while  to  be  even  conscious  that  man  has  a  mind,  much  less 
to  take  any  note  of  the  cyclonic  psychic  anarchy  that  in- 
cessantly strews  its  wreckage  within  the  sacred  precincts  of 
that  same  mind. 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  93 

Biological  integrity  demands  that  there  shall  be  abso- 
lutely no  feeling  or  spirit  of  self -inferiority  or  self-insuf- 
ficiency in  the  annals  of  the  human  mind.  No  self-disturb- 
ance or  self-denunciation  of  any  kind  must  be  suffered  to 
endure  in  the  mind  of  man  to  paralyze  his  power  to  put 
forth  effort,  or  freeze  the  fountains  of  his  desire  to  face  the 
goal  of  his  ambitions,  or  defeat  and  destroy  the  basic  ca- 
pacity and  function  to  enjoy  life.  The  moment  that  such 
conditions  obtain  in  the  human  mind,  the  very  foundations 
of  everything  that  a  comprehensive  self-preservation  really 
implies,  are  swept  away  in  a  torrent  of  devastation — for,  I 
ask:  If  an  organism  hasn't  got  its  own  full  and  complete 
measure  of  innate  self-support,  then  what  possible  inherit- 
ance or  legacy  can  that  organism  have  during  a  single  con- 
scious moment  of  its  existence,  outside  of  self -misery?  There 
can  be  but  one  answer — and  that  the  self-experienced 
wretchedness  of  mankind  everywhere  in  the  presence  of 
minds  that  have  been  dedicated  to  ruin. 

Our  situation  therefore  is  this:  Mental  harmony  does 
not  reign  within  the  human  mind.  This  is  the  same  as 
saying  that  the  mind  of  man  has  deserted  him,  for  it  is  at 
war  within  itself — exactly  the  same  as  so  many  warring 
members  within  a  family.  All  unity  and  harmony  of  or- 
ganic action  is  thus  lost — and  the  different  elements  of  the 
mind,  instead  of  constructively  co-ordinating  as  one  great 
energizing  composite,  actually  break  themselves  up  as  so 
many  isolates  and  act  within  the  mind  parasitically  against 
the  normal  organization  and  development  of  the  individual. 

But  let  us  inquire  more  minutely  and  more  concretely 
into  our  case.  Let  us  see  wherein  mental  inharmony  has 
taken  possession  of  the  human  mind.  Let  us  determine  spe- 
cifically what  it  is  that  has  thro^vn  the  human  mind  out  of 
gear.  These  are  points  of  information,  which  most  assur- 
edly every  person  must  want  to  know.  In  fact,  a  number 
of  very  explicit  questions  might  be  asked,  showing  our  fur- 
ther interest  in  viewing  the  details  of  this  entire  issue. 

What,  for  example,  is  point  number  one  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  "biological  integrity  ?    What  is  the  first  great  handful 


94  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

of  sand  that  is  thrown  into  the  cogs  of  our  mental  ma- 
chinery, remaining  there  throughout  life  to  wreck  our  native 
destinies?  "What  destruction  is  it  that  eternally  keeps  on 
sifting  its  way  into  the  human  mind  from  infancy  to  old 
age  ?  "What  instinct  is  it  in  the  human  mind  that  civiliza- 
tion has  coached  into  becoming  a  wild,  runaway  horse  with 
the  reins  dashed  to  the  ground?  What  monster  is  it  that 
education  has  seated  upon  the  throne  of  human  mentality,  to 
reign  as  monarch  of  all  things,  both  seen  and  unseen  1  What 
beast  is  it  that  reverses  the  order  of  the  world  by  standing  at 
the  gateway  of  every  human  faculty  and  clubbing  innate 
human  rights  and  human  powers  into  insensibility  and  help- 
lessness ?  What  tyrant  is  it  that  has  usurped  every  inalien- 
able right  in  the  republic  of  the  human  mind,  subjecting 
mankind  to  the  endless  bondage  of  psychic  slavery  ?  What 
is  this  supreme  dog  in  the  great  manger  of  human  possi- 
bilities, biting  and  snapping  and  growling  at  every  tired 
and  hungry  ox  that  would  come  there  to  feed  ?  What  cave 
man  is  it  that  stands  at  the  door  of  mental  life,  and  casts 
his  shadow  as  a  ghostly  and  ghastly  cloud  over  the  fairest 
flowers  of  the  human  soul?  What  hermit  is  it  that  has 
taken  up  his  haunts  in  the  mind  of  man,  there  to  gloat  and 
glory  over  the  psychic  desolation  and  undoing  of  the  Uni- 
verse ?  What  massive  behemoth  is  it  that  has  converted  the 
human  mind  into  a  seething  volcano  and  into  a  juggernaut 
of  ruin  ?  In  a  word,  what  is  it  above  all  else  that  has  bar- 
tered away  biological  integrity  down  through  the  ages,  and 
accepted  in  its  place  only  the  coin  of  chaos  ? 

Can  we  locate  that  monstrous  demon?  I  say  that  we 
can — and  I  am  going  to  name  him  right  now.  This  unholy 
fiend  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  gigantic  brute  which 
the  world  calls  fear. 

Fear — that  is  the  beast — ^that  is  the  monster — which  has 
ever  been  the  first  to  violate  and  burglarize  the  temple  of 
mental  life,  shattering  the  very  keystone  of  all  human  power 
from  its  arches.  I  say  that  the  scourge  and  curse  of  fear 
is  the  first  great  canker  that  eats  the  very  heart  out  of  lio- 
logical  integrity.    It  is  the  bitter  pill  of  fear  that  is  the 


AND   MY  OWN  ANSWER  95 

parent  of  every  plague  that  torments  and  tortures  the 
thought  life  of  mankind  today.  It  is  fear  which  is  the  one 
world  guarantee  that  just  as  long  as  fear  is  in  the  human 
mind,  mental  harmony  itself  can  never  be  there — because 
everywhere — in  every  psychic  w^orld — fear  is  eternally  an 
inciter  of  civil  war,  and  every  form  of  indescribable  chaos 
and  anarchy. 

And  yet  in  the  face  of  that  awful  fact  a  set  of  super- 
ficial educational  leaders  would  lightly  talk  about  ' '  the  full 
and  harmonious  development  of  all  the  faculties,"  and  then 
set  it  aside  as  a  child  would  some  toy.  They  were  unwit- 
tingly employing  one  of  the  very  richest  phrases  in  all  edu- 
cation. They  were  totally  unconscious  of  their  field.  They 
knew  no  more  of  the  real  meaning  and  significance  of  men- 
tal harmony  than  a  creeping  infant  would  of  a  stick  of  dyna,- 
mite  that  might  accidentally  fall  into  its  hands.  That  is  the 
reason  why  a  set  of  false  educational  leaders  passed  over 
the  most  priceless  treasures  in  all  the  territory  of  education, 
and  simply  said — ^^FooVs  Gold''!  Indeed  that  very  edu- 
cator whom  leaders  had  picked  out  as  one  of  the  foremost 
of  all  their  champions — ^W.  T.  Harris — said  far  worse — for, 
in  speaking  of  the  full  and  harmonious  development  of  the 
f acuities f  he  referred  to  the  doctrine  as  **a  dangerous  sur- 
vival. "^°  I  take  it  that  testimony  of  that  kind,  out  of  the 
mouths  of  its  ov,ti  selected  leaders,  ought  to  constitute  a 
most  convincing  evidence  to  the  world  that  education  must 
stand  self-impeached  before  the  bar  of  human  judgment — 
and  not  only  that,  but  as  the  years  go  by,  and  as  enlighten- 
ment dawns  within  the  human  mind,  present-day  education 
is  going  to  be  roundly  and  soundly  denounced  for  its  shame- 
ful lack  of  a  deep-seeing  leadership. 

Then  too  education  w^ould  babble  about  '* adjustment  to 
environment.''  "Why,  its  leaders  have  never  reached  in  wis- 
dom the  letter  A  in  this  marvelous  field.  Education  has 
never  even  dreamed  that  the  greatest  adjustment  under  all 
heaven  is  right  tvithin  the  human  mind  itself.  That  simple 
little  fact  has  never  once  occurred  to  education.     All  along 

30  See  chapter  4,  reference  25. 


96  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

the  line  it  has  been  laboring  under  the  bugbear  of  a  delu- 
sion that  the  one  great  adjustment  has  to  do  with  ruhhing 
elbows  with  one's  neighbors  I  It  is  no  wonder  that  with  the 
social  aim  obsession  blinding  the  eyes  of  educational  leaders 
everywhere  they  have  missed  the  richest  jewel  in  the  entire 
[field  of  adjustment.  To  be  sure,  we  must  make  external 
adjustments — no  one  is  denying  that.  But  we  may  make 
such  adjustments  until  doom's  day — and  education  will 
spell  nothing  but  an  abyss  of  endless  torment  until  such 
time  as  adjustment  number  one  is  made ;  The  harmonious 
adjustment  of  the  powers  or  faculties  or  instincts  within  the 
human  mind.  Nothing  in  the  Universe  can  be  right  for 
mankind  without  just  as  long  as  mankind  is  wrong  within 
— and  the  human  within  is  the  human  mind. 

Nor  will  such  a  process  of  getting  the  mind  right  be 
looking  skyward — or  "fixing  one's  gaze  on  spiritual 
heights,"  as  O'Shea  has  so  very  erroneously  said^^ — ^but  it 
will  be  coming  right  down  to  earth  and  attending  to  the 
bed-rock  essentials  of  common,  every-day  human  affairs.  In 
that  process,  no  single  finger  is  going  to  be  raised  against 
the  principle  of  external  adjustments — ^but  when  those  ad- 
justments are  made  they  shall  be  seen  and  understood  as 
but  means  toward  the  attainment  of  that  supreme  inner 
adjustment  of  mental  harmony,  which  must  be  made  the 
end  of  all  adjustment. 

But  in  this  particular  connection,  it  remains  to  be  pointed 
out  that  the  principle  of  liological  integrity  has  never 
yet  dawned  in  the  mind  of  education.  Every  passing  criti- 
cism that  education  has  ever  made  on  the  educational  aim 
of  unfoldment  or  of  the  full  and  harmonious  development 
of  the  faculties  or  of  self-realization — has  been  in  a  world  of 
thought  utterly  foreign  to  the  concept  and  thesis  of  biolog- 
ical integrity,  which  I  herein  and  herewith  lay  down  as  the 
fundamental  purpose  of  education.  Indeed  nowhere  today 
in  the  entire  field  of  education  is  a  single  thought  to  be 
found  that  bears  even  the  remotest  resemblance  to  the 
proposition  that  the  purpose  of  education  is  to  guarantee 

SI  See  chapter  4,  reference  29. 


AND  MY  OWN  ANSWER  97 

the  biological  integrity  of  the  individual.  Furthermore,  this 
concept  has  never  existed  in  the  minds  of  even  the  most 
zealous  champions  of  such  doctrines  as  harmonious  develop- 
ment, any  more  than  it  has  in  the  minds  of  the  critics 
thereof.  Consequently,  between  the  friends  of  that  doctrine 
and  between  the  enemies  of  that  doctrine,  the  principle  of 
biological  integrity  has  slumbered  on,  totally  and  equally 
unseen  by  both  camps  of  followers — and  in  the  meantime  an 
innocent  and  blameless  humanity  has  wearied  its  way  on, 
suffering  all  the  punishments  of  the — just  or  the  unjust. 

And  so  I  would  make  it  clear  before  closing  the  present 
chapter  that  the  most  basic  right  in  the  Universe  is  the  right 
of  psychic  stability  and  psychic  7iormality.  Similarly,  the 
most  fundamental  desire  in  the  Universe  is  that  instinctive 
and  unquenchable  longing  for  that  very  same  psychic 
anchorage  which  will  at  all  times  enable  the  individual  to 
breathe  from  his  conscious  and  sub-conscious  being  the  most 
unshakable  declarations  of  self-power  and  self-justification 
and  self-equality  before  the  whole  world  in  any  contest  or 
in  any  situation.  Every  individual  feels  deeply  the  innate 
right  to  go  through  life — uncrushed  in  the  court  of  his  own 
mind.  He  also  feels  and  knows  that  if  such  a  condition  does 
not  obtain,  he  is  a  helpless  victim  before  all  the  world.  In- 
deed he  knows  better  than  anything  else  that  has  ever  en- 
tered into  the  mind  of  man  the  great  central  fact  that  the 
only  self-preservation  in  all  creation  is  that  self-preservation 
which  proceeds  from  a  psychic  organization  whose  emana- 
tions are  not  eternally  the  death  shadows  of  self-deprecia- 
tion and  self-condemnation.  Yea,  even  the  simplest  organism 
knows,  if  only  instinctively  so,  that  even  though  the  body 
may  live,  a  tremulous  mind  can  spell  but  one  thing — and 
that  the  incessant  and  unescapable  inner  misery  which  al- 
ways comes  with  the  feeling  of  self  inferiority  and  self- 
inequality  to  the  occasions  of  the  hour. 

I  say  that  every  individual  feels  the  instinctive  call  and 
necessity  to  be  right  within — for  where  the  mind  wavers, 
the  individual  is  lost — and  the  individual  knows  it.  I  say 
further  that  it  is  the  most  innate  and  most  basic  right  of 

7 


98  THE   PUEPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

every  individual  not  to  go  through  life  crushed — and  every 
individual  feels  and  knows  that,  too,  as  keenly  as  any  razor 
edge — for  no  self-destruction  is  so  vivid  as  that  in  which 
there  exists  and  remains  a  human  mind  to  view  and  review 
the  desert  wastes  of  its  own  disorganization  and  weakness. 
That  is  the  one  great  reason  why  there  goes  up  from  that 
consciousness  and  that  contemplation  the  infinite  desire  to 
be  free  from  the  tyranny  of  mental  bondage. 

Now  the  right  to  be  thus  free  and  equal  and  self -pre- 
served on  the  part  of  every  individual  in  his  own  eyes  and 
his  own  estimation,  I  say  is  the  sacred  right  of  hiological 
integrity.  Without  that  right  assured  and  guaranteed  and 
realized,  the  individual  is  nothing — absolutely.  But  with 
that  right  realized,  every  individual  becomes  a  monarch  of 
power  and  virtue  and  happiness,  no  matter  what  exigencies 
of  life  might  befall  him.  That  is  why  I  put  forth  this  con- 
cept, insisting  that  the  first  and  most  sacred  duty  of  educa- 
tion is  to  guarantee  the  hiological  integrity  of  the  individual. 

It  shall  be  my  duty  in  the  following  chapters,  to  show 
how  this  purpose  of  education  is  to  materialize  by  means 
of  analyzing  in  detail  the  various  inverse  relations  that  ob- 
tain between  hiological  integrity  and  fear. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 
BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY  AND  FEAR 

In  the  preceding  chapter  it  was  laid  down  that  the  pur- 
pose of  education  is  to  guarantee  the  biological  integrity 
of  the  individual.  It  was  also  stated  that  fear  in  the  human 
mind  has  ever  been  the  fundamental  element  that  has  made 
biological  integrity  impossible.  In  the  present  chapter 
there  shall  be  commenced  a  detailed  exposition  of  that  first 
great  fact,  showing  wherein  fear  constitutes  the  one  pri- 
mary violation  and  the  one  monumental  defeat  of  the  sacred 
psychic  rights  of  every  individual  who  goes  through  life 
mentally  crucified. 

At  the  very  outset  I  want  to  drive  home  the  following 
most  tremendous  truth,  namely :  The  fundamental  state  of 
the  mind  is  the  basic  determinant  in  the  education  of  the 
individual.  This  principle  follows  directly  on  the  very 
heels  of  the  concept  of  biological  integrity — for  the  very 
moment  that  we  grant  the  proposition  that  self-preservation 
is  the  most  basic  right  and  desire  in  the  Universe ;  and  fur- 
ther and  especially  that  the  only  real  self-preservation  is 
that  which  inheres  in  the  innate  consciousness  of  that 
psychic  stability  which  spells  self-poise  and  self-equality 
and  self-justification  in  the  eyes  of  the  individual  himself — 
I  say  that  the  very  moment  that  we  grant  those  two  propo- 
sitions, then  at  once  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  real 
measure  of  any  individual's  education  is  the  fundamental 
state  of  his  mind. 

Now,  note  carefully  that  this  fundamental  state  of  the 
mind  is  an  entirely  different  thing  than  the  amount  of 
knowledge  that  the  mind  may  possess — for  a  mind  may  be 
teeming  with  knowledge,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  be  a  shiv- 
ering wreck.     The  absolute  truth  of  this  declaration  must 

99 


100  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

be  perceived  and  admitted — otherwise  the  principle  of  bio- 
logical integrity  with  all  its  implications  is  missed  entirely. 
Furthermore,  since  biological  integrity  is  the  very  first 
right  of  every  individual ;  and  since  the  fundamental  state 
of  the  mind  is  the  one  gauge  and  guarantee  of  the  exact 
degree  of  biological  integrity  that  obtains  in  the  life  and 
conduct  of  any  individual ;  and  still  further  since  that  de- 
gree of  biological  integrity  should  always  be  the  very  high- 
est— it  follows  that  the  fundamental  state  of  an  individuaVs 
mind  should  always  be  the  very  best  possible.  In  otheo* 
words,  the  problem  of  education,  which  is  the  problem  of 
biological  integrity,  resolves  itself  into  equipping  each  in- 
dividual with  the  soundest  mind — or,  the  greatest  degree  of 
psychic  firmness  and  psychic  harmony. 

Our  next  concern  is  to  inquire  of  what  an  individual's 
fundamental  state  of  mind  consists,  and  how  it  is  produced. 
My  general  answer  to  this  question  is,  that  every  thought 
entering  into  or  proceeding  from  the  human  mind  has  its 
feeling  tone — and  that  it  is  that  feeling  tone  that  is  of  first 
importance.  Nor  is  that  statement  a  mere  set  of  words  to 
be  glided  over.  That  fact  demands  to  be  emphasized — 
for  it  has  a  double  significance,  the  unexpressed  phase  of 
which  is,  that  an  individual's  fundamental  state  of  mind  is 
not  the  fact  tone  of  his  thoughts  at  all.  Let  that  proposition 
sink  deeply  and  indelibly  into  our  understanding.  It  is 
the  feeling  tone  of  all  psychic  experience  that  counts — 
and  not  the  fact  tone.  That  is  why  I  stated  in  the  preced- 
ing paragraph  that  the  greatest  shipwreck  of  a  mind  might 
at  the  same  time  be  the  repository  of  the  greatest  amount 
of  knowledge.  Suffice  it  to  say,  therefore,  that  the  one  great 
dominating  ingredient  entering  into  the  psychic  state  of  the 
individual  is  the  feeling  tone  of  the  thoughts  that  cross  and 
recross  the  threshold  of  his  mental  life. 

Having  arrived  at  this  stage  of  agreement,  I  now  desire 
to  plunge  into  the  bearing  of  fear  on  the  checkmating  and 
undoing  of  our  accepted  principle  of  biological  integrity.  I 
lay  it  down  as  an  elemental  fact  that  fear  is  the  one  great 
feeling  tone  that  has  pre-empted  and  engulfed  the  human 


BIOLOGICAL   INTEGRITY   AND    FEAR  101 

mind.  And  I  say  it  with  all  solemnity  that,  until  such  time 
as  that  feeling  tone  is  destroyed,  man  will  remain  a  weak- 
ling, buffeted  about  in  a  thousand  ways  in  a  world  peopled 
with  all  the  ghosts  and  spooks  and  spirits  and  terrors  and 
hobgoblins  of  a  disordered  mentality.  As  Sadler  has  said, 
''Fear  is  a  mental  blight,  a  moral  mildew,  an  intellectual 
poison. '  '^-  I  say  that  it  is  the  universal  blight  and  mildew 
and  poison  of  all  civilization — and  all  education.  Fear  has 
become  a  universal  mental  disease.  In  the  presence  of  that 
disease,  '*all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit'^ — regardless 
of  how  much  alleged  education  any  individual  may  have 
— for  fear  is  a  demon  of  such  an  endless  mental  functioning 
that  it  shatters  the  very  foundations  of  the  entire  human 
mind. 

Fear  is  a  disease  which  spells  distress,  destruction,  de- 
generacy. It  spells  panicky  mental  action  in  every  depart- 
ment of  human  thought.  It  always  produces  mental  dys- 
pepsia. Fear  is  the  hand-maiden  of  mental  bondage  and 
moral  thraldom.  It  is  a  psychic  desperado — and  it  will 
never  be  anything  else  until  the  end  of  time.  The  only 
thing  that  it  ever  gives  rise  to  is  false  impressions  and 
fraudulent  feelings.  Fear  is  the  most  prolific  source  of  evil 
of  any  agency  in  the  Universe.  It  weakens  and  paralyzes 
every  fiber  and  every  cell  of  organic  creation.  It  is  fear 
which  is  playing  eternal  havoc  with  the  world  today — ^be- 
cause it  is  fear  which  has  disrupted  human  mentality.  As 
Horace  Fletcher  has  said,  ''The  underlying  cause  of  all 
weakness  and  unhappiness  in  man  ....  has  always  been, 
and  still  is,  weak  habit-of-thought.''  Fear  is  the  concen- 
trated essence  which  has  saturated  all  mental  action  in  such 
a  way  as  to  place  our  habit  of  thought  upon  a  foundation 
of  ashes. 

And  how  does  fear  thus  perform  its  unholy  work  of  pros- 
trating the  human  mind  ?  It  does  it  by  forcing  every  single 
individual  fear-victim  to  self-invoice  himself  in  the  role  of 
self-asserting  his  own  ivea'kness,  insignificance  and  inequal- 
ity — or,  in  other  words,  by  leading  its  victim  to  play  the 

S2W.  S.  Sadler:  Psychology  of  Faith  and  Fear,  page  98. 


102         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

ungodly  part  of  mental  self -executioner.  Fear  is  not  thus 
what  it  is  ordinarily  thought  to  be :  Some  independent,  iso- 
lated thing  which  operates  in  its  own  special,  fear  field — ■ 
and  then  stops  right  there  at  some  imaginary  boundary  lines. 
That  is  not  what  fear  is  at  all.  Fear  has  no  boundary  lines. 
Its  field  of  operation  is  the  entire  human  mind — and  that 
means  the  entire  human  body  as  well.  This  means  that 
fear  does  its  wicked  work  by  enforcing  on  its  victims  psy- 
chic suicide.  There  is  no  other  alternative,  whatever,  for 
any  victim  of  fear — because  the  moment  that  the  human 
mind  becomes  a  feverish  hotbed  of  tremulous  hesitancy,  in- 
decision and  doubt,  that  very  moment  every  iota  of  thought 
has  washed  out  of  itself  every  semblance  of  self -trust  and 
self-approbation — and  instead  of  those  absolutely  indis- 
pensable and  irreplacable  feeling  tones,  every  thought  be- 
comes impregnated  through  and  through  with  the  poison- 
ous tincture  of  the  most  deadly  and  the  most  paralyzing 
enemy  that  creation  has  ever  had — self-condemnation.  That 
is  to  say,  the  fear-victim  has  no  choice  of  any  kind  what- 
soever. He  has  but  one  occupation — the  one  achieved  and 
thrust  upon  him.  It  is  the  endless  business  of  hroiv-h eating 
himself. 

Let  us  understand  clearly,  therefore,  that  fear  breaks 
down  every  barrier  within  the  human  mind.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  psychic  world  that  can  possibly  isolate  the 
action  or  the  effects  of  fear.  It  knows  no  restrictions  of 
any  kind.  Its  insulation  from  any  physiological  section  or 
from  any  psychological  phase  of  the  mind  is  a  total  impos- 
sibility. That  is  wh}^  fear  completely  lays  waste  every  con- 
dition and  prerequisite  of  stable  equilibrium  in  the  human 
mind — and  why  at  the  same  time  it  utterly  throttles  bio- 
logical integrity  within  the  very  precincts  of  its  own  estates. 

Now  this  same  fact  gives  us  our  clue  to  another  impor- 
tant proposition,  namely:  The  education  of  the  will  is  al- 
ways of  infinitely  greater  importance  than  that  of  the  in- 
tellect in  the  shaping  of  the  destiny  of  the  individual. 
But  psychology  one  is,  that  the  will  is  nothing  more  or  less 
than  a  composite  flowering  out  of  the  emotions.     Over- 


BIOLOGICAL   INTEGRITY   AND    FEAR  103 

powering  emotions  not  only  completely  override  the  will — 
they  also  completely  underride  it,  for  upon  the  emotions 
the  will  is  built.  As  are  the  grooves  in  the  emotions,  so  is 
the  will.  The  machinery  of  all  mentality  has  its  own  ruts 
— and  it  rapidly  settles  into  them — including  all  emotional 
phases.  All  of  our  established  habits  form  actual  and 
literal  pathways  through  the  nervous  mechanism  of  the 
body.  The  grooves  of  our  mentality  have  an  actual,  ma- 
terial foundation — and  the  work  of  emotion  pervades  them 
all.  Fear  is  the  unholy  master  demon  which  has  injected 
its  indelible  coloring  into  every  groove  and  every  rut  of  the 
human  mind — so  that  the  human  will  is  unstable  today  and 
undependable  in  proportion  to  the  degree  that  fear  is  the 
color  tone  of  the  mind. 

The  prevention  and  cure  of  aberrations  in  the  instincts 
or  emotions  is  thus  our  very  first  duty  in  education.  But 
all  of  the  aberrations  in  the  human  mind  are  overwhelm- 
ingly the  fruitage  of  fear.  Therefore,  we  may  well  lay 
down  the  proposition  that  education  has  no  duties,  how- 
ever sacred  they  may  be,  antedating  the  duty  of  keeping 
fear  out  of  the  human  mind — a  duty  which  education  has 
never  even  thought  of  performing,  because  thus  far  educa- 
tion has  completely  lacked  a  fundamental  consciousness  on 
the  subject.  Because  of  that  non-performance  humanity 
has  been  eternally  and  helplessly  tied  to  a  kindled  stake 
whose  consuming  fires  have  been  but  the  fanning  flames 
of  fear. 

In  all  the  centuries  of  human  misery,  fear  has  been  the 
chief  weapon  of  self-destruction.  Fear  is  the  law  of  self- 
friction.  It  is  a  chasm  in  every  cubic  centimeter  of  which, 
is  to  be  found  loss,  death,  defeat,  accident,  catastrophe,  de- 
moralization. It  is  both  the  sword  and  the  scabbard  which 
has  bled  the  w^orld  of  its  peace,  its  happiness,  its  composure. 
It  is  the  bottomless  pit  of  nothingness.  Its  shadows  are 
chaos,  collapse  and  fatality.  It  is  the  Iamb-like  beast  which 
has  crushed  from  the  lion  its  courage.  It  rules  every  house 
that  was  ever  divided  against  itself.  Of  all  the  world's 
great  slaveholders,  fear  is  incomparably  the  greatest.     It 


104  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

is  the  parent  of  all  mental  debility.  It  is  the  offspring  of 
ignorance.  It  is  the  prince  of  inquisition.  Its  choicest 
fruits  are  timidity  and  cowardice,  apprehension  and  worry, 
superstition  and  depression,  self-consciousness  and  self- 
condemnation.  It  is  the  leading  actor  in  all  the  great 
tragedies  of  human  experience. 

Bear  in  mind  that  we  are  talking  about  fear — and  that 
the  fear  of  which  we  speak  is  enthroned  in  the  human  mind. 
At  all  times  a  pessimist,  fear  is  the  greatest  enemy  to  health, 
harmony  and  happiness  that  has  ever  darkened  the  planet. 
It  runs  counter  to  every  feeling  of  love  and  courage  that 
ever  animated  mankind.  It  is  the  prophet  of  evil.  It  is 
the  veil  that  blackens  every  landscape  of  the  future.  In 
the  farthest  domains  of  the  enemy's  country,  our  only 
enemy  is  the  fear  that  we  carry  in  the  bosoms  of  our  own 
minds.  In  the  inner  battles  of  life — there  and  there  alone 
is  where  the  great  contest  is  on.  For  this  reason,  fear  is 
the  most  pernicious  garb  that  ever  clothed  a  human  thought. 

Fear  is  the  seed  whose  poisonous  flower  is  moral  cow- 
ardice, vacillation  and  suspicion.  It  is  the  thief  of  time. 
It  is  also  the  thief  of  all  individual  and  social  progress. 
Every  unjustifiable  atom  of  fear  of  public  opinion,  censure 
and  criticism  is  not  only  a  fountain  of  ceaseless  mental  tor- 
ture for  the  individual — but  it  is  also  a  pit  in  which  lie 
buried  the  social  hopes  of  the  world.  By  its  procrastina- 
tions and  paralyzings,  fear  postpones  the  very  horizon  of 
hope,  and  turns  backwards  the  hands  of  social  progression 
on  the  dial  of  human  aspirations  and  human  longings.  It 
cripples  conscience  and  puts  duty  upon  crutches.  It  bi- 
sects truth  and  places  stripes  on  the  innermost  vision  of  the 
human  soul.  It  is  the  mother  of  disobedience  and  doubt. 
At  the  bar  of  conscience  it  makes  convicts  and  cowards  of 
all  of  its  victims.  At  the  counters  of  life  it  makes  beggars 
and  paupers  of  everyone  of  them.  Its  only  coin  is  the  tender 
of  bankruptcy  and  apology.  It  bows  down  and  worships 
the  foot  that  kicked  and  the  hand  that  smote.  Abjectly  it 
adores  the  demon  of  error,  whether  it  be  tradition  or  cus- 
tom, usage  or  style,  insult  or  abuse. 


BIOLOGICAL    INTEGRITY   AND    FEAR  105 

Fear  is  a  repeal  of  the  instinct  of  self-preservation — for, 
by  nullifying  every  effort  of  the  will,  it  is  a  standing  invi- 
tation for  the  world  to  pursue  and  possess  us.  Fear  is  the 
very  cornerstone  of  selt-annihilation.  Crowded  with  old 
fears,  the  human  mind  ever  beckons  new  fears  to  its  shrine. 
The  triumph  of  mankind  over  fear  must  ever  be  made  the 
aim  of  life,  the  aim  of  education  everywhere — for  fear  is 
the  parent  of  stampede,  and  the  synonym  of  death.  Fear 
strangles  courage  as  a  terrier  would  shake  the  senses  out 
of  a  rat.  Yea,  fear  crucifies  the  eternal  essence  of  the  Uni- 
verse— love. 

Wondrous  triumphs  await  the  mind  that  justly  knows 
no  fear.  But  if  the  very  shadow  of  truth  be  fear,  then 
what  single  step  can  truth  ever  hope  to  make  when  it  is 
hounded  by  fear  at  every  turn  ?  Any  mind  freed  from  fear 
is  a  mind  purified,  chastened,  ennobled.  Such  a  mind 
mounts  as  on  the  wings  of  an  eagle,  soaring  through  the 
etherialized  regions  of  Infinity.  It  rises  as  a  benediction, 
freed  from  the  volcanic  pits  of  torment,  and  takes  its  right- 
ful supremacy  in  worlds  of  unlimited  power.  Nor  are  such 
worlds  foreign  to  the  rightful  deserts  of  any  of  us — for 
every  human  being  has  within  his  consciousness  a  ray  of 
light  of  some  kind.  But  fear  corrodes,  corrupts  and 
crushes  that  light — and  that  is  why  most  of  the  world's 
singers  are  voiceless — they  die  with  all  their  music  and  their 
dreams  and  their  ambitions  unvoiced  within  them — thanks 
to  the  tragic  fact  that  fear  is  the  one  great  undercurrent  in 
the  human  mind,  and  the  one  dominant  overtone  in  human 
conduct.  Fear,  be  it  known,  is  faith  in  evil.  Doubt  and 
worry  are  a  confirmed  trust  in  the  same  thing. 

Nor  must  we  forget  for  a  minute  the  permanence  and 
ever-presence  of  fear  in  its  action  as  a  functioning  influence, 
wherever  it  has  gained  a  foothold  in  the  human  mind.  Fear 
never  takes  a  vacation.  This  does  not  mean  that  some 
specific  fear  is  always  consciously  operating  in  the  mind — ■ 
it  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  at  all.  What  it  does  mean 
is  the  fact  that  has  already  been  pointed  out,  namely,  the 
fact  that  fear  is  more  than  fear — that  is  to  say,  some  spe- 


106  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

cific  fear,  for  example,  does  not  stop  there  simply  as  that 
one  individual  fear,  which  operates  in  some  one  special  de- 
partment of  the  mind,  and  then  only  during  that  time  when 
it  is  consciously  in  the  mind.  That  is  not  a  complete  con- 
ception of  fear  at  all — because  fear  involves  the  entire  mind, 
and  establishes  such  an  inward  mental  reality,  that  in  effect 
fear  is  a  constant  operator,  whether  any  acute  fear  is  actu- 
ally sensed  or  not.  That  is  to  say,  fear  by  degrees  estab- 
lishes its  own  peculiar  state  of  mind.  It  lends  to  the  entire 
mind  a  feeling  tone  of  chronic  fear,  which  manifests  itself 
in  the  mind  of  the  victim  as  self-belittlement.  The  fear 
victim  is  always  self -discounting  himself  and  self-exalting 
the  world.  He  does  this  not  because  he  wants  to,  but  be- 
cause of  the  deeply  ingrained  footprints  that  fear  has  left 
in  his  mind.  He  simply  cannot  help  it.  He  is  ever  mak- 
ing comparisons — and  at  the  conclusion  of  every  comparison 
he  has  but  taken  one  more  suggestion  of  his  own  self- 
inferiority. 

Now  that  state  of  feeling  is  the  world  in  which  the  fear- 
victim  lives — for  it  is  the  unchanging  color  tone  of  his 
mind.  But  that  is  not  all.  It  is  far  more  than  a  mere 
mental  world  to  the  victim.  It  is  also  the  victim 's  world  of 
conduct.  He  acts  parallel  to  the  mind  that  is  his.  As 
Royce  says,  ''We  not  only  observe  and  feel  our  doings  and 
attitudes  as  a  mass  of  inner  facts,  viewed  all  together,  but 
in  particular  we  attend  to  them  with  greater  or  less  care".^^ 
In  the  case  of  that  paralyzed  mental  attitude  superinduced 
by  the  chronic  effects  of  fear,  attention  thereto  is  Tines- 
capable  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  life  training  in  fear  finally 
comes  to  constitute,  as  it  were,  the  very  protoplasmic  color- 
ing of  the  innermost  essence  of  the  human  soul.  ''As  a  man 
thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he.'*  But  the  mind  poisoned 
and  prostrated  with  fear  must  think  whether  it  would  or 
not — for  the  outstanding  characteristic  of  fear  is  the  utter 
inertia  of  its  perpetual  motion  in  the  direction  of  death. 

Furthermore,  the  conduct  of  the  fear-victim  bears  its 
own   death  symbols.     Chief  among  those  symbols  is  the 

23  Royce :   Outlines  of  Psychology.     Page  reference  lost. 


BIOLOGICAL    INTEGEITY    AND    FEAR  107 

standing  presence  of  a  crippled  self-assertion.  Outwardly 
the  victim  of  fear  may  be  dashing  boldly  forward — but 
inwardly  the  weight  of  his  conviction  is  pulling  backwards 
— for  his  self-faith  is  so  utterly  without  a  rock  foundation 
that  he  is  ready  to  run  at  the  shade  of  the  shadow  of  the 
first  shot.  The  fear  victim,  therefore,  does  not  venture. 
He  cannot  venture — or,  at  least  if  he  does,  then  his  venture 
is  but  the  spasmodic  gathering  up  of  the  determinations  of 
the  moment.  But  such  determinations  are  usually  infirm — 
because  they  consist  too  exclusively  of  conscious  effort, 
whereas  they  should  have  back  of  them  the  unshakable  bal- 
last which  comes  only  with  the  enduring  granite  of  sub- 
conscious moorings.  Consequently  the  efforts  of  the  fear- 
victim  quickly  ooze  out — for  they  are  on  about  the  same 
plane  as  trying  to  carry  water  in  a  sieve.  The  sum  total 
of  the  matter  is,  that  the  victim  of  fear  sneaks  behind  the 
curtains  of  life,  and  hides  in  their  shadows,  where  his  only 
consciousness  and  only  companionship  is  the  spirit  of  self- 
condemnation.  Borrowing  from  the  language  of  Plato,  it 
is  the  literal  and  enforced  ''pulling  back  of  a  soul  which  is 
under  the  influence  of  thirst  ".^^ 

But  there  is  still  a  larger  factor  to  consider  in  this  con- 
nection, and  that  is,  that  in  the  fear-victim  there  sets  in  a 
degeneration  of  personality.  The  same  lack  of  self-asser- 
tion and  self-poise  and  self-faith  in  the  foundations  of  the 
mind  soon  crystallizes  itself  shadow  for  shadow,  and  sign 
for  sign,  in  countenance,  in  eye,  in  gait,  in  speech — and  in 
that  indefinable  something  which  we  call  expression  and 
atmosphere.  Instead  of  a  simple  sense  of  strength  in  the 
fear-victim  we  detect  one  of  complex  weakness.  Instead  of 
poise,  we  find  flurry.  Instead  of  ease,  we  find  a  reflection  of 
constant  inward  concern.  Instead  of  a  tone  of  self-integrity 
we  find  one  of  self-apology.  Instead  of  a  feeling  of  undis- 
turbed naturalness,  we  detect  one  of  hurrying  seemliness. 
Instead  of  undisguised  innocence,  we  see  a  helpless  insin- 
cerity. Instead  of  a  focused  oneness  of  mind,  we  behold  a 
dispersed  multiplicity  of  mental  action.     Instead  of  a  sub- 

2^  Plato:  EepuLlic,  pages  135-144. 


108         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

consciousness  of  self-power,  we  perceive  a  consciousness  of 
self-weakness. 

Such  are  some  of  the  many  conditions  carved  out  by  fear 
in  the  degeneration  of  human  personality — and  wherever 
they  are  they  always  speak  for  themselves  in  terms  of  the 
negative  impressions  that  they  lend. 

Now,  briefly  speaking,  it  is  along  the  general  lines  laid 
down  thus  far  in  the  present  chapter  that  fear  does  its 
work.  It  does  it  by  eating  the  very  heart  out  of  the  indi- 
vidual's self-respect — and  that  too  before  the  wide-open 
eyes  of  a  protesting  consciousness.  That  is  why  fear  is  the 
great  throttler  of  biological  integrity — it  robs  the  mind  of 
its  sacredly  rightful  sense  of  self-equality,  and  thereby  re- 
duces the  individual  to  insignificance  and  zero  in  his  own 
eyes,  and  then  tortures  him  with  the  enormity  of  the  result- 
ing consciousness.  With  biological  integrity  strangled,  the 
only  inch  of  solid  ground  that  the  victim  has  to  stand  on 
is  the  outraged  consciousness  that  it  ought  not  to  be  as  it 
is — because,  bear  in  mind  the  very  important  fact  that  hio- 
logical  integrity  is  two-fold  in  its  inner  significance :  first, 
it  involves  the  basic  right  of  every  individual  to  be  endowed 
with  the  consciousness  that  he  is  the  equal  of  any  other  indi- 
vidual in  the  Universe;  and,  second,  it  involves  the  basic, 
instinctive  and  conscious  desire  on  the  part  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  have  just  such  a  consciousness.  The  first  part  of 
the  principle  involves  the  right  of  every  individual  to  go 
through  life  nn-trodden  by  his  fellow  man,  or  by  any  other 
force  in  the  Universe,  within  or  without;  the  second  part 
of  the  principle  makes  the  individual  consciousness  of  that 
right,  and  the  individual  desire  for  that  right  to  be  equally 
sacred  with  the  right  itself. 

Now,  it  is  in  the  second  phase  of  this  principle  that  the 
victim  really  suffers — in  the  desire  and  consciousness  side 
of  it — for  even  if  an  individual  is  eternally  hrow-heaten  in 
life,  it  would  not  mean  nearly  so  much  in  terms  of  actual 
misery,  if  Nature  had  not  implanted  in  the  soul  of  every 
organism,  high  or  low,  the  undying  conviction  of  his  right 
not  to  be  trodden  upon,     The  real  spiritual  slogan  engraved 


BIOLOGICAL   INTEGRITY   AND   FEAR  109 

on  every  banner  of  self-preservation  that  ever  waved  is 
just  this — ^^Do  not  tread  upon  mel"  The  implication  of 
that  slogan  is  not  at  all  that  it  is  an  aggressive  challenge 
for  a  fight — but  simply  Nature's  wise  assertion  that  self- 
respect  constitutes  the  most  important  prerequisite  in  the 
Universe — for  the  thing  that  the  world  calls  self-preserva- 
tion is  nothing  more  or  less  than  the  objective  manifesta- 
tion of  the  deeply  implanted  psychic  right  and  desire  and 
reality  of  the  sense  of  self -equality — and  even  the  plunder- 
ing hand  of  fear  itself  cannot  take  away  from  the  indi- 
vidual that  glimmer  of  consciousness  which  ever  tells  him 
in  unmistakable  tones  that  when  Nature  chiseled  the  prin- 
ciple of  biological  integrity  into  the  protoplasmic  granite 
of  the  ages,  she  chiseled  aright. 

Let  us  therefore  emphasize  this  fact,  namely:  No  indi- 
vidual is  ever  really  down-trodden  in  life  until  he  is  down- 
trodden within  the  judgment  and  consciousness  of  his  own 
mind.  Furthermore,  every  individual  knows  that  as  un- 
mistakably as  he  does  the  simplest  fact  in  every  day  life. 
It  matters  not  what  happens  to  the  individual  externally 
— it  all  depends  on  what  is  happening  within  the  precincts 
of  the  individual's  mind.  In  human  consciousness — there 
and  there  alone  is  where  mankind  is  brow-beaten  and  trod- 
den upon.  This  patent  fact  is  illustrated,  for  example,  by 
the  total  unconcern  which  a  very  large  dog  will  manifest 
as  a  rule  toward  the  persistent  and  ridiculous  impudence  of 
some  very  small  dog  in  attacking  the  larger  one.  By  such 
an  attack,  the  integrity  of  the  big  dog  is  in  no  way  im- 
peached, for  even  though  he  may  get  bitten  his  poise  of 
mind  stands  absolutely  unshaken  in  his  consciousness  of 
the  very  fact  that  his  mind  is  unshaken.  And  precisely  the 
same  principle  holds  with  human  beings — that  is,  the  basic 
criterion  of  self-preservation  lies  within  the  mind  itself. 
It  is  the  individual's  attitude  toward  what  is  happening 
to  him. 

Unquestionably  it  must  be  a  phase  of  this  same  principle 
with  which  the  spirit  of  the  following  injunction  was  orig- 
inally impregnated,  namely:  *'But  whosoever  shall  smite 


110         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

thee  on  thy  right  cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other  also".^^  I 
say  that  originally  this  injunction  must  have  primarily  ap- 
pealed to  the  side  of  the  strong,  for  purely  on  the  grounds 
of  biological  integrity,  which  is  the  only  point  of  view  that 
I  am  taking  here,  there  is  absolutely  no  justification  what- 
ever for  any  sacrifice  that  is  made  by  the  weak — by  which  I 
mean  sacrifice  made  on  the  plane  of  trembling  cowardice. 
Had  Belgium,  for  example,  turned  the  other  cheek  to  Ger- 
many, it  would  have  been  a  colossal  violation  of  the  sacred 
tenet  for  which  I  herewith  plead — because  Germany  was  a 
bully,  with  perceptions  so  dulled  and  deadened  that  such  a 
cheek-turning  process  would  have  fallen  on  German  ears  that 
were  deaf.  The  United  States,  on  the  other  hand,  might  very 
well,  if  thought  best,  turn  the  other  cheek  to  a  Mexico — ^be- 
cause in  the  process  of  such  a  turning,  there  would  be  repre- 
sented no  psychic  defeat  for  our  country.  The  point  sim- 
ply is,  that  since  the  resulting  state  of  mind  is  the  one  great 
criterion  of  whether  or  not  an  individual's  integrity  is  being 
violated,  the  gia^it  may  readily  turn  the  other  cheek  if  he 
wants  to — ^because  in  the  very  consciousness  of  his  self- 
equality  he  suffers  no  defeat — for  his  mind  is  all  right. 
That  is  to  say,  his  biological  integrity  remains  absolutely 
unimpaired.  But  to  turn  the  other  cheek,  when  that  turn- 
ing is  merely  a  symbol  of  a  crushed  and  broken  mind — such 
a  turning  is  an  unspeakable  outrage  on  every  basic  concep- 
tion of  right  in  the  Universe.  Such  a  sacrifice  can  never 
spell  anything  but  the  further  sore  delay  of  that  hour  when 
mankind  must  perceive  for  his  own  good  the  psychic  truth  of 
being  as  it  actually  exists. 

Now  the  purpose  of  the  above  immediate  argument  is 
to  drive  home  with  increased  emphasis  the  fact  that  it  is 
in  the  human  mind  that  all  human  contests  really  take 
place — and  that  accordingly  it  is  by  the  mental  marks  of 
those  contests  that  we  must  judge  the  fundamental  state  of 
an  individual's  mind.  By  that  state  of  mind  must  we 
judge  his  education — and  by  that  education  must  we  judge 
whether  or  not  the  individual  is  a  victim  of  the  world.     If 


35  The  Bible.    Attributed  to  Christ  in  Matthew  5:39. 


BIOLOGICAL   INTEGRITY   AND    FEAR  111 

he  is  a  victim  of  the  world,  then  his  education  is  wrong. 
If  his  education  is  wrong,  then  his  fundamental  state  of 
mind  is  wrong.  If  his  fundamental  state  of  mind  is  wrong, 
then  the  various  life  contests  and  life  situations  through 
which  he  passes  are  eating  out  the  very  heart  of  his  being 
— and  if  that  is  true,  then  that  means  that  the  holy  prin- 
ciple of  hiological  integrity,  which  Nature  implanted  in  him, 
lies  bruised  and  bleeding  and  broken  in  the  rivetted  vision  of 
his  own  eyes — and,  finally,  if  that  is  so,  then  we  have  traced 
to  his  last  lair  the  villainous  demon  of — fear! 

Fear — I  say — that  is  the  murderous  wretch  of  the  ages ! 
That  is  the  marauder  brigand  that  has  stolen  down  through 
the  centuries  and  kidnapped  the  very  foundations  of  the 
human  mind,  leaving  not  so  much  as  the  option  of  a  ran- 
som. Fear,  I  say,  is  the  footpad  freebooter  that  has  clubbed 
the  human  mind  into  psychic  discord,  into  psj^chic  helpless- 
ness, into  psychic  self-depreciation.  Fear,  therefore,  is  the 
beast  that  we  must  drive  from  our  estates — for  I  affirm 
over  and  over  again  that  with  biological  integrity  violated, 
all  of  our  alleged  education  is  but  the  most  contemptuous 
derision  of  mankind.  The  thing  for  which  I  make  appeal  is 
the  deep  mortising  in  the  human  mind  of  that  principle 
which  will  enable  every  individual  really  to  sing  with  the 
poet  the  following  most  spiritually  heroic  lines — 

"Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 

Black  as  the  pit  from  Pole  to  Pole, 
I  thank  whatever  gods  may  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 

I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud— 
Beneath  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 

My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. 

It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate. 

How  charged  with  punishments  the  scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate, 

I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul".^^ 

26  William  Ernest  Henley:  Invietus.  One  stanza  of  the  poem  is 
omitted  above. 


112         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

The  spirit  of  that  poem  is  the  birthright  of  every  human 
soul.  It  is  the  spiritual  perfume  of  that  soul  which  is  not 
only  conscious  of  its  birthright — but  is  also  the  possessor 
of  it.  It  is  the  essence  of  what  I  herein  designate  as  the 
first  right  and  the  most  universal  desire  known  to  mankind 
— the  right  and  desire  of  biological  integrity. 

In  the  following  chapters,  fear  in  its  further  detailed 
and  destructive  relations  to  this  fundamental  principle  will 
be  considered  from  a  genetic  standpoint. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY 
FEAR:  ITS   GENETIC  ASPECTS 

Our  historic  period  is  but  two  seconds  on  Hseckel's 
cosmic  clock  of  twenty-four  hours.  This  will  give  us  some 
idea  of  the  ages  during  w^hich  primitive  man  has  been  con- 
vulsed with  fears  and  terrors  unnumbered.  But  fear  is 
far  older  than  the  human  race.  It  is  as  old  as  the  oldest 
life  on  the  planet.  Back  through  the  remotest  pages  of 
time  and  creation  must  we  go  if  we  would  come  to  the 
first  mile-post  in  the  long,  dreary,  endless  procession  of 
the  countless  stakes  that  mark  the  trail  and  march  of  fear. 
The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  we  must  go  to  the  animal  world. 
There  shall  we  see  fear  as  it  operates — pulsating  as  cease- 
lessly as  the  waves  that  wash  the  shores  of  the  seas. 

This  fact  is  testified  to  unconsciously  in  many  of  the 
nooks  and  corners  of  our  best  literature.  Robert  Burns, 
for  example,  wrote  far  more  than  a  poem  when  he  penned 
his  famous  lines  ''To  A  Mouse."  He  at  the  same  time 
touched  upon  the  psychic  bedrock  of  the  animal  world.  I 
have  selected  lines  from  this  poem  as  follows — 

I. 

Wee,  sleekit,  eowerin',  tim'rous  beastie, 
Oh,  what  a  panic's  in  thy  breastie! 

VII. 

But,  mousie,  thou  art  no  thy  lane. 
In  proving  foresight  may  be  vain: 
The  best  laid  plans  of  mice  and  men 

Gang  aft  agley, 
And  lea'e  us  nought  but  grief  and  pain 

For  promised  joy. 
8  113 


114  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

VIII. 

Still,  thou  art  blest  compared  wi'  me! 
The  present  only  touehet  thee: 
But  oeh!  I  backward  cast  my  e'e 

On   prospects  drear! 
An'  forward,  tho'  I  canna  see, 

I  guess  and  fear! 

In  the  above  few  lines  Burns  gives  us  one  of  the  most 
vivid  and  one  of  the  most  significant  pictures  of  fear  ever 
painted.  "Oh,  what  a  panic's  in  thy  breastie" — that  one 
line  sums  up  the  case  of  fear  as  no  other  combination  of 
words  ever  can.  I  shall  refer  to  it  often — for  it  represents 
exactly  the  psychic  state  of  any  organism — man  or  beast — 
in  which  the  principle  of  biological  integrity  is  undermined. 

But  the  above  poem  tells  us  much  of  the  antiquity  of 
fear.  James  himself  says  that  fear  is  one  of  the  oldest 
of  all  emotions.  He  places  it  beside  lust  and  anger.^^  But 
in  my  opinion,  lust  and  anger  can  never  be  so  basic  as  fear, 
at  least  in  terms  of  effects,  for  the  reason  that  fear  is  far 
less  of  any  subject's  own  choosing.  Certainly  fear  is  the 
most  energetic,  the  most  exciting,  the  most  engulfing  and 
the  most  paralyzing  emotion  that  has  ever  taken  possession 
of  any  mentality.  And  this  fact  must  argue  for  us  all  the 
inconceivable  antiquity  of  fear.  Unquestionably  the  tap- 
roots of  fear  spread  themselves  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  Universe  with  the  very  first  dawn  of  con- 
sciousness on  the  scaffoldings  of  creation.  Kipling  most 
penetratingly  voices  the  spirit  of  this  proposition  when  he 
wrote  ''The  Song  of  the  Little  Hunter,"  which  is  being 
given  herewith. 

The  Song  of  the  Little  Hunter  ^^ 

Ere  Mor  the  Peacock  flutters,  ere  the  Monkey  People  cry. 
Ere  Chil  the  Kite  swoops  down  a  furlong  sheer. 


37  William    James :    Psychology,    Advanced    Course ;    volume  II., 
page  415. 

s^Eudyard  Kipling:   The  Second  Jungle  Book,  pages  191-2. 


FEAE:    ITS    GENETIC   ASPECTS  115 

Through  the  Jungle  very  softly  flits  a  shadow  and  a  sigh— 

He  is  Fear,  0  Little  Hunter,  he  is  Fear! 
Veiy  softly  down  the  glade  runs  a  waiting,  watching  shade, 

And  the  whisper  spreads  and  widens  far  and  near; 
And  the  sweat  is  on  thy  brow,  for  he  passes  even  now— 

He  is  Fear,  0  Little  Hunter,  he  is  Fear! 

Ere  the  moon  has  climbed  the  mountain,  ere  the  rocks  are  ribbed 
with  light, 
When  the  do^vnward-dripping  trails  are  dank  and  drear, 
Comes  a  breathing  hard  behind  thee— snuffie-snuffle  through  the 
night— 
It  is  Fear,  0  Little  Hunter,  it  is  Fear ! 
On  thy  knees  and  draw  thy  bow;  bid  the  shrillmg  arrows  go; 

In  the  empty,  mocking  thicket  plunge  the  spear; 
But  thy  hands  are  loosed  and  weak,  and  the  blood  has  left  thy 
cheek- 
It  is  Fear,  0  Little  Hunter,  it  is  Fear! 

When  the  heat-cloud  sucks  the  tempest,  when  the  silvered  pine- 
trees  fall. 
When  the  blinding,  blaring  rain-squalls  lash  and  veer; 
Through  the  war-gongs  of  the  thimder  rings  a  voice  more  lo^^d 
than  all— 
It  is  Fear,  0  Little  Hunter,  it  is  Fear! 
Now  the  spates  are  banked  and  deep;  now  the  footless  bouldei's 
leap— 
Now  the  lightning  shows  each  littlest  leaf-rib  clear- 
But  thy  throat  is  shut  and  dried,  and  thy  heart  against  thy  side 
Hammers:  Fear,  0  Little  Hunter— this  is  Fear! 

With  Kipling,  fear  '^ flits  a  shadow  and  a  sigh"  through 
all  the  vastness  of  the  jungles.  But  Kipling  addresses 
himself  to  '^The  Little  Hunter."  And  who  is  this  ''Little 
Hunter"?  I  say  that  it  is  that  organism  or  any  organism 
that  is  enmeshed  with  fear — that  organism  of  which  it  may 
be  said,  ''What  a  panic's  in  thy  breastie."  Fear  is  the 
one  fundamental  thing  which  always  determines  whether 
any  hunter  is  big  or  little.  It  is  fear  that  casts  the  mold 
and  the  gauge  of  every  hunter — because  fear  is  the  sole 
determinant  of  whether  or  not  any  hunter  hunts  and  pur- 


116  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

sues  himself  within  his  own  mind.  The  subject  of  fear  is 
always  his  own  prey  and  his  own  pursuer.  It  is  therefore 
no  wonder  that  such  a  hunter  becomes  ''little"  from  every 
conceivable  standpoint. 

Now,  the  rational  function  of  fear  in  the  beginnings  of 
the  animal  world  was  undoubtedly  to  escape  a  greater,  direct 
pain  by  means  of  a  smaller,  indirect  one.  But  an  over- 
whelmingly irrational  fear  has  shifted  the  organic  balance 
in  the  opposite  direction — for  fear  itself  is  a  pre-eminently 
painful  and  destructive  state.  To  a  very  great  extent,  the 
animal  world  has  been  one  continuous  panic  of  fear.  The 
ages  seem  to  have  been  one  endless  pulsation  of  terror, 
beating  away  ever  and  ever  and  ever  its  overtones  of  fear 
into  the  delicate  psychic  structure  of  animal  creation.  In 
the  animal  world,  fear  was  thus  established  as  a  deep  seated 
instinct. 

Such  then  is  our  stage  setting  when  we  arrive  at  man 's 
first  appearance  on  the  earth.  Man  brought  with  him, 
therefore,  his  fear  inheritance — not  so  much  from  an  unes- 
capable  organic  standpoint,  but  in  the  sense  that  the  pre- 
disposition toward  fear  was  there  just  as  long  as  the  out- 
ward environment  was  present  to  implant  fear.  Not  only 
this,  but  with  the  dawTi  of  human  intelligence,  the  occasions 
for  new  and  increased  fears  were  actually  multiplied. 
Whereas  the  animal  world  in  all  likelihood  took  but  little 
note  of  the  phenomena  of  Nature,  primitive  man  began  his 
speculations  in  this  special  field  at  once.  His  added  intelli- 
gence, together  with  his  intensified  faculties  of  curiosity  and 
wonder,  injected  new  terrors  into  every  phase  of  his  natural 
environment.  In  every  cloud,  in  every  crash  of  lightning, 
in  every  tempest,  in  every  tide,  in  every  w4nd,  in  every  rain- 
bow, in  every  shadow,  in  every  moving  blade  of  grass,  in 
every  rustling  leaf,  in  every  dream — ^in  every  one  of  them  he 
saw  and  felt  a  world  peopled  with  terrors.  In  his  clouded, 
unschooled  mind,  there  was  no  fear  to  which  primitive  man 
was  not  subject.  It  is  of  course  true,  as  James  has  said, 
that,  ''The  progress  from  brute  to  man  is  characterized  by 
nothing  so  much  as  by  decrease  in  frequency  of  proper  occa- 


FEAE:    ITS   GENETIC  ASPECTS  117 

sions  of  fear".^^  But  I  answer:  When  was  fear  in  the 
mind  of  man  ever  confined  to  ^'proper  occasions  of  fear"? 
I  say,  never,  in  my  opinion.  Indeed,  that  very  fact  consti- 
tutes just  one  more  indictment  against  fear,  namely,  the 
fact  that  most  of  its  ''occasions"  are  overwhelmingly 
groundless.  It  is  therefore  unquestionably  true  that  man 
has  always  been  a  greater  prey  of  fear  than  the  animal 
world  ever  has. 

From  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  the  barbarian,  the  semi- 
civilized  and  the  civilized  live  under  the  withering  blight  of 
fear — during  childhood,  during  adolescence  and  during  old 
age.  ' '  The  savage,  despite  his  apparent  liberty,  is  in  almost 
every  sense  a  slave — ^a  slave  to  his  own  needs  and  to  the 
dread  of  unseen  powers.  Even  in  the  case  of  material 
things  he  has  no  freedom,  for  he  is  continually  afraid  of  the 
essence  contained  in  them.  Hence  he  wastes  his  time  in 
the  performance  of  all  sorts  of  propitiary  rites,  and  after 

all  he  does  not  get  rid  of  fear For  many  ages  this 

fear  prevented  savages  from  applying  fire  to  human  uses. 
It  was  held  to  be  divine  and  inviolable.  The  story  of  Pro- 
metheus' theft  of  it  from  heaven,  and  of  the  vengeance 
which  pursued  him,  is  merely  an  echo  of  the  feelings  which 
followed  this  application.  In  the  religion  of  Zoroaster,  this 
same  fear  of  polluting  fire  exists  even  at  the  present  day."**^ 

Herein  we  see  the  psychic  makeup  of  the  primitive 
mind.  In  fact,  all  of  primitive  man's  religion  and  all  of 
his  science  was  animism — a  fear  belief  in  essences  of  the 
most  ghostly  sort.  A  similar  present-day  picture  is  given 
us  by  another  writer  in  speaking  of  the  Bulus  in  Africa  in 
the  following  words:  ''There  is  a  common  enslavement  fo 
the  things  of  fear.  In  these  dim  forests,  every  son  of  man 
is  born  to  fear.  Temporal  and  material  fears  he  does  in- 
deed suffer,  but  these  minor  fears  are  as  the  little  finger  to 
the  thumb,  in  comparison  with  the  major  fears,  which  are 

3^  William  James:  Psychology,  Advanced  Course,  volume  II.,  page 
415. 

^0 Davidson:  History  of  Education,  page  22;  also  note  bottom 
same  page.    See  also  Frazer:  The  Golden  Bough;  passim. 


118  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

not  material  fears.  Here  is  the  sum  of  his  terrors :  Fear  of 
other-worldly  things  as  they  impinge  upon  the  sunny  open- 
ing of  his  life,  and  fear  of  the  unknown  venture  beyond 

death What  can  we  know  of  the  relentless  pressure 

upon  the  human  heart  of  the  crowded  world  of  the  animist  ? 
To  him,  the  rocks  of  this  world,  its  rivers,  its  forests,  all  the 
structure  of  it,  and  all  its  ornament,  are  not  sufficient  to 

afford  lodging  for  the  spirit  tenants There  is  a  Bulu 

proverb  which  says:  *A  shadow  never  falls,  but  a  spirit 
stands'  'V' 

Speaking  along  a  similar  line,  still  another  writer  has  the 
following  to  say:  ''It  is  impossible  for  us  to  imagine  what  a 

dreadful  power  this  fear  is  in  the  life  of  the  heathen 

With  this  fetter,  every  animist  is  bound.  The  incessant 
fear  of  demons  and  their  evil  plots,  and  of  the  sorcery 
closely  connected  with  their  worship,  by  which  these  people 

are  tormented,  passes  our  understanding The  heathen 

would  furnish  an  example  of  how  surely  fear  debases  man. 
....  Men  of  fearless  character  are  mostly  noble  minded. 
The  fearful  are  cruel.  Fear  poisons  every  social  relationship 
and  distrust  becomes  a  second  nature  to  the  harassed.  The 
poor  fear  the  rich,  the  weak  the  strong,  the  sick  the  healthy. 
....  But  those  whom  no  one  needs  to  fear  are  mercilessly 
trodden  under  foot.  What  an  immense  amount  of  fear  is 
involved  in  burial  ceremonies.  Such  fear  is  not  to  be 
trifled  with.  "^2 

Comments  like  the  above  could  be  quoted  without  num- 
ber. In  every  instance  the  testimony  would  unanimously 
point  to  the  fact  that  down  through  the  centuries  the  mind 
of  man  has  been  one  vast  conservatory  of  fears.  Very  nat- 
urally, therefore,  fear  has  been  a  dominant  thought  impress 
in  every  civilization.  Either  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
fear  has  threaded  its  way  into  the  very  fibre  of  all  primitive 
education,  Davidson  testifies  to  this  fact  in  the  following 
words : ' 'From  what  has  been  said,  it  is  not  difficult  to  divine 
the  nature  of  Assyro-Babylonian  education.  It  was  priestly ; 

*i  Jean  Kenyon  Mackenzie:   An  African  Trail,  page  66. 
^2  John  Warneck :  The  Living  Christ  and  Dying  Heathenism. 


FEAR:    ITS    GENETIC   ASPECTS  119 

it  related  chiefly  to  the  unseen ;  it  was  hostile  to  true  edu- 
cation  Their  ethics  was  closely  related  to  their  re- 
ligion, and  revolved  around  the  notion  of  sin  or  transgres- 
sion ....  not  as  an  expression  of  character,  or  as  affect- 
ing human  beings,  but  as  an  offense  against  unseen  powers. 
....  In  all  cases  the  ethical  motive  was  craven  fear,  which 
lay  like  a  dead  weight  upon  men  whom  superstition  had 
convinced  of  their  utter  unworthiness  in  the  presence  of 
irresponsible  gods.  Such  ethics  produced  their  natural  re- 
sults— fanatic  religiosity  and  superstitious  observance 
coupled  with  every  species  of  vice — incontinence,  cruelty, 
treachery.  It  is  never  safe  to  deprive  the  human  being  of 
his  sense  of  dignity  and  nohility,  by  making  him  feel  him- 
self the  slave  of  any  capricious  power,  seen  or  unseen,  how- 
ever sublime/^  Thus  the  Assyro-Babylonians,  though  con- 
tributing many  and  important  elements  to  material  civili- 
zation, stand  as  a  warning  to  the  world,  of  how  little  such 
civilization  contributes  to  human  well-being,  when  not  rest- 
ing on  a  moral  basis.  "^*  According  to  the  same  writer, 
in  Chaldean  culture  and  education,  *' Craven  superstition 
was  also  in  full  blast  ".^^  Likewise,  in  commenting  on  con- 
ditions in  India,  he  makes  the  significant  statement  that, 
''All  the  virtues  of  the  two  great  Indian  religions  rest  upon 
a  foundation  of  cowardice,  and  aim  only  at  unconditional 
sloth,  entailing  the  loss  of  moral  individuality."^^ 

Davidson  then  makes  a  jump  across  the  centuries  and 
commits  himself  to  the  startling  admission  that,  ''Until 
after  the  decay  of  medisevalism  all  education,  with  the  ex- 
ception, perhaps,  of  that  inculcated  by  Socrates,  has  been 
education  for  subordination.'"'^  Davidson  should  of  course 
have  specifically  excepted  Plato,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
latter  had  been  a  student  of  Socrates.  But  disregrardino:  that 


^3  The  italics  in  this  sentence  are  mine.  The  italicized  words  rep- 
resent very  fairly  a  limited  view  of  one  phase  of  the  principle  whiah 
I  have  designated  as  hiological  integrity. 

*4  Davidson :  History  of  Education,  pages  52-4. 

45IbirL,  page  36. 

''^Ibid.,  page  66. 

^^Ibid.,  page  174. 


120  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

fact  entirely,  Davidson's  admission,  sweeping  as  it  is,  and 
limited  as  it  is  to  subordination  in  relation  to  ' '  unseen  pow- 
ers, ' '  does  not  begin  to  go  far  enough.  It  is  my  contention  that 
from  the  very  beginning  of  mankind,  right  down  to  the 
present  time,  education  has  been  overwhelmingly  a  coun- 
tenanced structure  of  subordination,  by  virtue  of  the  spirit 
of  fear  which  has  at  all  times  been  permitted  to  become  and 
remain  the  master  tenant  of  the  human  mind.  Either  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  the  spiritual  substance  of  the 
world's  education  has  always  been  a  fear  education — ^that 
is  to  say,  education  has  never  given  any  thought  whatever 
to  the  fundamental  states  of  mind  of  those  who  come  to 
drink  at  her  fountains.  The  laissez  faire  policy  of  a  sur- 
face-seeing ignorance  has  ever  given  carte  hlanche  to  fear  in 
all  things  educational. 

To  be  sure,  our  prevailing  fears  today  may  be  different, 
and  they  may  also  be  somewhat  more  refined — but  it  is  the 
fact  of  fear — its  actual  color-tone  presence  in  the  human 
mind — and  not  any  refined  differentiation  of  it,  that  counts. 
The  terrible  reality  itself  is  fear.  No  coining  of  names, 
and  no  fashioning  of  phrases,  and  no  juggling  with  periods 
of  human  history,  and  no  elaborating  on  epochs  of  human 
culture  can  ever  modify  one  whit  the  psychic  essence  of 
what  so-called  civilization  is  depositing  year  after  year,  and 
century  after  century  in  the  mind  of  man.  All  civilizations 
have  made  fear  the  spirit  of  their  deposits.  In  saying  this 
I  take  twentieth  century  semi-civilization  squarely  by  the 
ear,  and  march  it  directly  to  the  misdeeds  that  it  has  so 
long  suffered  to  obtain  in  the  mental  annals  of  our  time. 

In  referring  to  the  tremendous  part  that  has  been  played 
by  fear  all  along  the  line  in  the  past,  Mosso  relates  the  fol- 
lowing historical  incidents:  ^'Alexander  of  Macedonia 
offered  up  sacrifices  to  Fear  before  he  went  into  battle,  and 
Tullus  Hostilius  erected  temples  and  consecrated  priests  to 
it.  In  the  museum  of  Turin  there  are  two  Roman  medals, 
one  of  which  bears  the  impression  of  a  terrified  woman,  the 
other  the  head  of  a  man  with  hair  on  end,  and  frightened, 
staring  eyes.     They  were  struck  by  the  consuls  of  the  family 


FEAE:    ITS    GENETIC  ASPECTS  121 

of  the  Hostilii  in  remembrance  of  the  vows  made  to  propi- 
tiate Fear,  which  threatened  to  invade  the  ranks  of  the  sol- 
diers, who  thereupon  were  led  to  victory"/^ 

But  it  is  not  necessary  for  us  of  modern  days  to  offer 
up  any  such  artificial  sacrifices  to  the  demon  of  fear.  Fear 
already  has  them  anyway — in  terms  of  cause  and  effect — 
her  countless  victims — and  very  often  the  choicest  members 
of  the  human  flock.  No — we  need  offer  up  no  further  sacri- 
fices to  fear — because  the  richest  gem  of  all  the  ages  has 
already  been  sacrificed  to  fear.  It  is  the  human  nvind.  The 
mind  of  man  has  been  eternally  the  workshop  of  fear.  Upon 
the  walls  of  that  shop,  fear  has  hung  every  conceivable  and 
inconceivable  tool  of  terror  and  torture — and  then  with 
those  same  tools,  fear  has  carved  into  the  very  heart  of 
human  consciousness  with  a  glee  that  has  been  diabolical 
beyond  measure. 

All  along  the  way,  therefore,  fear  has  cast  creation  into 
the  shadows.  Beginning  with  the  animal  world,  fear  gave  a 
cyclonic  impetus  to  all  that  psychic  instability  which  has 
spelled  subordination,  cowardice  and  chaos.  In  that  early 
fear  fact  a  strong  predisposition  was  established  for  neutral, 
negative,  vacillating  personality.  Biological  integrity  was 
unduly  shattered  in  the  balance.  Weakness,  bewilderment 
and  panic  pre-empted  the  psychic  thrones  of  strength,  poise 
and  mastery.  Biological  integrity  lay  weeping  at  the 
fountain. 

That  was  the  state  of  man's  inheritance.  His  legacy 
from  the  animal  world  was  the  instinct  of  fear.  But  that 
in  itself  did  not  necessarily  spell  fatality.  It  spelled  merely 
a  predisposition  to  follow  the  fear  road  of  the  jungle — 
providing  that  the  food  of  environment  continued  such  as 
to  feed  and  nourish  that  predisposition,  the  very  unfor- 
tunate condition  which  actually  did  obtain.  Man's  in- 
creased intelligence  only  created  new  jungles  for  psychic 
desperation.  They  were  the  jungles  of  natural  phenomena 
— totally  misunderstood.  And  man  inhabited  those  jungles. 

*^  Angelo  Mosso :  Fear,  English  translation,  Lough  and  Kiesow, 
page  275. 


122  THE  PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

In  fact  he  never  moved  out.  He  took  up  his  permanent  resi- 
dence there.  His  attitude  toward  his  fear  predisposition 
was  wrong.  His  inheritance  and  his  legacy  thus  became 
one.  That  duplex  unity  was  the  same  old  sigh,  and  the 
same  old  shadow  of  the  original  jungles — fear.  With  relig- 
ious devotion,  man  therefore  bowed  down  and  kneeled  down 
and  worshipped  at  the  same  old  jungle  shrine — the  shrine  of 
fear. 

And  ever  since  that  great  ceremonious  day  when  the 
beasts  first  transferred  their  right  of  world  government  and 
world  dominion  over  to  man,  the  god  of  the  human  race  has 
been  fear — for  fear  has  ever  been  the  dominating  spiritual 
influence  which  has  hovered  over  the  human  mind.  Fear  it 
is  which  has  influenced  the  innermost  substance  of  our  souls 
— and  such  an  influence  is  the  god  of  the  world — and  not 
by  any  means  any  mere  word  that  we  feign  to  pronounce 
by  the  meaningless  movement  of  the  lips.  Fear  stands  today 
as  the  major  keynote  of  all  our  culture  and  all  our  education 
— because  the  general  order  of  our  day  permits  fear  to  get 
in  on  the  ground  floor  of  the  human  mind — and  stay  there 
— and  neither  our  *' culture"  nor  our  "education"  has  ever 
turned  a  positive  primary  hand  to  take  possession  of  that 
fear.  Fear  is  the  tenant  of  the  mind  of  man  today  for  the 
reason  that  century  after  century,  prevailing  culture  per- 
mits it  to  be.  The  permanency  of  fear  tenure  all  but  makes 
it  the  complete  owner  and  the  last  and  final  master  of  the 
human  mind. 

But  I  hasten  to  explain  more  fully,  that  this  matter  can 
never  be  justly  laid  at  the  door  of  instinct.  In  the  real 
sense  of  the  term,  comparatively  speaking,  there  is  no  in- 
stinct of  fear — ^that  is,  in  the  sense  of  an  unescapable 
organic  inheritance.  The  fear  in  the  world  in  every  age  has 
been  overwhelmingly  a  social  inheritance.  That  is  to  say, 
fear  endures  in  the  world — not  because  Nature  has  imposed 
it — but  because  the  young  of  every  generation  absorb  the 
fear  culture  that  is  all  about  them  in  the  thought  and  the 
conduct  of  their  elders.  That  is  exactly  where  fear  comes 
from,  from  age  to  age — man  feeds  it  and  keeps  it  alive  and 


FEAR:    ITS   GENETIC   ASPECTS  123 

thriving  with  that  same  stupidity  and  that  same  ignorance 
with  which  a  more  primitive  man  in  his  own  day  used  to 
keep  himself  constantly  in  a  state  of  hysterics  over  the 
simplest  phenomena  of  Nature. 

In  other  words,  the  social  educations  of  the  past  have 
merely  been  passed  on  from  generation  to  generation.  Mod- 
em man  in  his  system  of  common,  or  more  properly  speak- 
ing "unwT:'itten"  system  of  education  has  but  borrowed  his 
cue  from  the  past — with  the  result  that  the  heathenish  dross 
and  error  of  things  has  never  been  burned  out  of  our  doc- 
trines and  our  philosophies  and  our  habits  of  thought. 
Man  has  therefore  made  a  doul3le  mistake  in  the  whole  af- 
fair: In  the  first  place  he  committed  a  colossally  childish 
blunder  when  he  picked  up  the  wild  clue  of  the  animal  world 
and  ran  like  a  lunatic  through  the  ages,  prostrating  and 
paralyzing  himself  before  the  simplest  phenomena  of  Na- 
ture; and  in  the  second  place  he  performed  the  crowning 
act  of  human  idiocy  when  he  picked  up  the  pattern  of  primi- 
tive education  and  thus  permitted  a  fear  culture  to  be  the 
perpetual  social  inheritance  of  his  children  from  generation 
to  generation.  The  first  of  these  two  awful  mistakes  may 
be  partly  condonable,  for  primitive  man  was  after  all  but  a 
beast  man.  But  the  second  blunder — so-called  civilized  man 
here  in  the  twentieth  century,  still  copying  after  the  beast 
man  of  old  in  the  jungles — who  can  excuse  it  ?  I  say  that 
it  is  high  time  for  us  to  call  this  dazed  and  deluded  man  of 
civilization  to  his  senses — and  to  inform  him  that  his  first 
and  most  sacred  duty  is  so  to  arm  and  so  to  fashion  his 
civilization,  his  culture  and  his  education  as  to  drive  for- 
ever this  demon  of  fear  from  the  social  environment  of 
each  on-coming  generation.  We  have  accepted  the  leader- 
ship of  the  black  jungles  of  the  past  long  enough — and  I 
say,  let  us  quit  it! 

Briefly,  then,  this  is  the  genetic  situation  as  we  find  it 
today  after  millions  of  years  of  animal  life  on  the  planet — 
after  one  unbroken  reign  of  numberless  ages  of  the  most 
despotic  and  the  most  destructive  monarch  that  ever  sat 
upon  a  throne.     In  the  name  of  an  education  in  keeping 


124  THE   PUEPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

with  the  nobility  and  dignity  of  mankind,  and  in  harmony 
with  the  holy  principle  of  biological  integrity,  and  all  that 
it  implies,  I  am  asking  for  the  exile  of  this  fear  monster 
from  the  channels  of  our  minds. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  consider  the  effects  of  fear 
on  the  human  organism,  chiefly  from  a  physical  standpoint. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY 
FEAR:  ITS  PHYSICAL  EFFECTS 

Despite  its  many  apparent  absurdities  and  contradic- 
tions, the  doctrine  of  Mrs.  Eddy  may  be  said  to  contain  one 
paramount,  unquestionable  truth,  which  stands  out  like  a 
great  Aetna  amid  the  barren  knolls  of  worthless  lava, 
namely:  Every  creature,  however  minute,  is  governed  hy 
a  mind.  From  the  mind,  the  body  derives  its  animation,  its 
senses,  its  feeling,  its  intelligence,  its  reason,  its  instincts,  its 
perception,  its  passion,  its  strength,  its  life — its  everything. 

But  there  is  nothing  new  whatever  in  that  doctrine. 
Mrs.  Eddy  did  not  invent  it.  She  merely  gathered  it  up 
and  gave  it  a  new  and  practical  setting — and  projected  it  as 
a  serious  fact — for  which  she  is  entitled  to  every  credit. 
But  the  doctrine  itself  is  as  old  ''as  the  hills" — because  the 
doctrine  states  a  truth  of  the  Universe.  Perhaps  the  best 
form  in  which  the  supremacy  of  mind  over  matter  was  ever 
enunciated  was  in  the  words  of  a  certain  wise  man  centuries 
ago  during  one  of  his  inspired  moments:  ^^For  as  a  man 
thinJceth  in  his  heart,  so  is  he*\*^  This  same  truth  was 
most  excellently  put  in  a  somewhat  different  form  by  a 
writer  of  our  own  time  when  he  said  a  few  years  ago  that, 
**  Thoughts  are  things  ".^°  Therefore,  we  are  not  dealing 
with  any  doctrine  or  any  theory,  or  indeed  any  newly  dis- 
covered truth  when  we  speak  of  the  influence  of  the  human 
mind  on  the  human  body. 

Now,  any  person  who  would  be  right  in  his  living  of  life 
must  be  right  in  his  understanding  of  fundamental  facts — 
because  the  working  truths  of  life  are  truths  that  never  rest. 

49  The  Bible.     Solomon:  Proverbs  23:7. 
^0  Prentice  Mulf ord. 

125 


126  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

Further,  there  is  perhaps  no  fact  that  it  is  so  indispensable 
for  every  individual  to  know  as  the  creative  reality  of 
thought.  Thoughts  are  tremendous  realities.  This  is  neither 
a  whim  nor  a  fancy — it  is  a  fact.  Every  thought  that  an 
individual  thinks  floods  his  entire  physical  being  with  some 
kind  of  a  psychic  message — and  that  message  becomes  either 
food  or  poison  for  every  cell  within  his  body.  Thoughts 
are  simply  psychic  chemistry. 

But  we  must  see  this  fact,  not  in  a  large,  loose  way,  but 
in  specific  connection  with  the  cell,  which  is  perhaps  the 
final  microscopic  individuality  of  the  body.  It  is  estimated 
that  there  are  within  the  human  body  at  least  twenty-five 
trillion  cells.  Each  of  these  cells  is  a  separate  and  distinct 
being  living  its  own  life  as  well  as  lending  association  with 
every  other  cell.  About  two  billion  of  those  cells  are  in  the 
brain  and  spinal  cord.  Millions  of  them  are  in  the  sympa- 
thetic nervous  system. 

Now,  the  important  fact  is  this :  Every  one  of  the  twenty- 
five  trillion  cells  of  the  body  is  constantly  being  subjected 
to  two  influences — first,  chemical  messages;  and,  second, 
mental  messages.  The  chemical  messages  are  of  course  the 
products  of  the  food  that  we  eat,  and  the  air  that  we  breathe 
— and  the  resulting  disposition  of  all  things  material  that 
are  taken  into  the  body.  The  mental  messages  are  the 
thoughts  that  we  entertain.  With  unerring  certainty,  un- 
escapably  and  inevitably,  those  mental  messages  are  flashed 
into  the  very  heart  of  every  one  of  the  twenty-five  trillion 
cells  of  which  the  body  is  composed.  Indeed,  when  the 
facts  are  all  known,  we  shall  find  that  the  influence  of  the 
mental  messages  is  more  important  than  that  of  the  chem- 
ical messages. 

Not  only  this,  but  the  mental  message  to  every  cell  is 
also  in  itself  a  chemical  message.  The  thoughts  that  we 
entertain  actually  build  up  their  own  definite  chemicals 
within  our  bodies.  Students  of  psychic  chemistry  have 
proven  this  by  the  chemical  analysis  of  the  blood,  the  per- 
spiration, and  the  different  secretions  of  the  bodies  of 
persons  laboring  under  the  influence  of  varying  emotions — > 


FEAE:    ITS    PHYSICAL    EFFECTS  127 

as  well  as  by  the  analysis  of  the  expired  air.*^^  The  evil 
thought  always  develops  the  evil  chemical;  the  good 
thought,  the  good  chemical.  All  of  those  chemicals,  what- 
ever they  may  be,  are  turned  loose  to  flood  the  twenty-five 
trillion  cells  of  the  body.  The  state  of  the  mind  thus  un- 
deniably becomes  an  actual  chemical  environment,  which 
influences  every  morsel  of  food  that  we  eat,  every  drop  of 
water  that  we  drink,  and  every  breath  of  air  that  we 
breathe.  It  is  through  this  most  basic  fact  that  the  mind 
exerts  its  tremendous  influence  over  itself  and  over  the 
physical  body. 

The  mental  state  must  therefore  be  accepted  as  the 
determining  power  and  the  deciding  factor  in  all  of  life's 
struggles.  Any  influence  which  gains  control  of  the  brain 
and  nerve  centers  will  soon  gain  control  of  the  entire  body 
— to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  the  mind  itself,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  degree  that  it  is  deranged,  becomes  hand- 
cuffed and  clamped  into  chains  as  if  in  a  vise.  But  of  all 
the  evil  mental  states  which  have  ever  operated  in  the 
human  mind,  fear  is  incomparably  the  worst.  The  greatest 
havoc  of  all  is  wrought  by  fear.  It  soon  sets  up  conditions 
beyond  the  power  of  the  normal  mind  to  function.  In 
addition  to  poisoning  every  cell  in  the  body,  it  also  builds 
up  in  the  en-tire  nervous  organization  that  literal  and  ma- 
terial machinery  which  best  serves  its  unholy  purpose.  It 
sets  up  a  set  of  organic  conditions  that  are  pathological  to 
the  very  core. 

Let  us  briefly  review  some  of  the  effects  of  fear  on  the 
human  body.  The  following  general  comment  is  from  Dar- 
win: '^That  the  skin  is  much  affected  under  the  sense  of 
great  fear,  we  see  in  the  marvelous  manner  in  which  per- 
spiration immediately  exudes  from  it.     This  exudation  is 

all  the  more  remarkable,  as  the  surface  is  then  cold 

In  connection  with  the  disturbed  action  of  the  heart,  the 
breathing  is  hurried.  The  salivary  glands  act  imperfectly ; 
the  mouth  becomes  dry,  and  is  often  opened  and  shut 

51  Elmer  Gates,  formerly  with  Smithsonian  Institute.  See  his 
works. 


128  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

The    voice    becomes    husky    or    indistinct,    or    may    fail 

altogether All  the  muscles  of  the  body  may  become 

rigid  ".'^^ 

Such  words  from  Darwin  should  strike  conviction.  Nor 
should  there  be  any  mystery  about  the  matter  at  all — 
and  there  will  be  no  mystery  about  it  the  moment  that  we 
quit  thinking  about  the  human  mind  as  a  sort  of  airy  noth- 
ingness— and  about  thought  itself  as  something  that  is 
absolutely  nothing.  We  must  remember  that  thoughts 
are  things.  We  must  get  hold  of  that  fact.  We  must  think 
of  every  thought  as  so  many  trillions  of  infinitesimal  mole- 
cules or  microscopic  j>articles  darting  out  from  the  mind 
in  every  direction — fiven  as  wireless  waves  of  electrical 
energy  reaching  out  to  every  point  of  the  compass.  We 
must  think  of  thought  as  a  great  infinitude  of  darting  sparks 
that  literally  shower  and  bathe  our  being,  and  penetrate  the 
very  essence  of  our  organization  to  its  innermost  depths. 
Yes,  we  must  think  of  thoughts  as  things — and  of  fear 
thoughts  as  the  most  terrible  things  that  ever  inhabited  the 
mind  of  man. 

Our  indictment  against  fear  is  positive  and  unanimous. 
Its  destructive  influence  on  every  organ  and  every  func- 
tion of  the  body  is  testified  to  by  every  authority  every- 
where. If  wo  consider  the  influence  of  fear  on  the  action 
of  the  heart,  we  have  the  matter  summed  up  by  Dr.  Sadler 
as  follows:  "Heart  strength— decreased,  weakened.  Rhythm 
— irregularity,  palpitation.  Rate — abnormal  rapidity.  Nu- 
trition— decreased  by  overwork  and  under-rest.  Endurance 
— heart  failure  in  case  of  profound  fear.  Cardiac  centers — 
depression  and  paralysis.  Emotional  response — attention 
alters  the  beat.  Psychic  response — conscious  thumping 
against  the  chest  when  agitated.  Referred  sensation — un- 
pleasant and  disagreeable".^^ 

But  Sadler  does  not  stop  merely  with  the  influence  of 
fear  on  the  heart.  He  deals  in  detail  with  the  withering 
effects  of  fear  on  the  circulation,  blood  pressure,  vital  re- 

52  Charles  Darwin :  Origin  of  the  Emotions,  pages  290-2. 
63  W.  S.  Sadler :  Physiology  of  Faith  and  Fear,  page  121. 


FEAE:    ITS    PHYSICAL   EFFECTS  129 

sistance,  secretions,  digestion,  metabolism,  respiration, 
muscles,  skin,  brain  and  nerves.  In  order  to  bring  this 
matter  fully  before  us  I  am  quoting  herewith  Dr.  Sadler's 
summaries  under  the  various  headings  just  named. 

Speaking  of  the  effects  of  fear  on  the  circulation.  Dr. 
Sadler  says'"*  that  the  blood  pressure  is  greatly  raised  by 
fear,  that  the  face  becomes  pale,  and  the  extremities  cold. 
Arteriosclerosis  is  increased  and  aggravated,  while  capillary 
contraction  becomes  unnatural,  spasmodic  and  irregular. 
The  blood  movement  becomes  retarded,  and  also  favors  and 
produces  congestion.  Local  congestion  is  also  produced  by 
the  fear  thought.  The  circulatory  equilibrium  is  likewise 
hindered,  and  local  stagnation  is  favored.  The  pulse  be- 
comes weak,  irregular  and  rapid.  And  last,  but  not  least, 
fear  favors  apoplexy. 

It  is  roughly  in  the  above  terms  that  Dr.  Sadler  sums 
up  his  tremendous  indictment  against  fear,  as  far  as  its 
effects  on  the  circulation  of  the  blood  are  concerned.  In  the 
case  of  blood  pressure,  the  disastrous  effects  of  fear  stand 
out  equally  prominent,  xlmong  other  things,  the  same 
author  states  that  the  emotional  states  may  raise  the  blood 
pressure  from  30  to  50  mm.°^ 

In  his  treatment  of  vital  resistance.  Dr.  Sadler  says'*^ 
that  the  red  cells  of  the  blood  are  decreased  and  indirectly 
destroyed,  and  that  the  activity  of  the  white  cells  in  destroy- 
ing body  cells  is  increased.  The  generation  of  psychic 
blood  poisons  is  also  favored,  while  the  action  of  the  h-mph 
cells  in  the  h-mph  stream  is  retarded.  Antitoxins  are  like- 
wise delayed,  both  in  their  production  and  in  their  dis- 
semination. But  above  all,  the  alarming  fact  is  established 
that  fear  "creates  soil  favorable  to  germs";  that  healing 
power  is  retarded,  and  recovery  delayed;  that  the  vital 
resistance  is  ''markedly  decreased";  that  sickness  is  ''in- 
creased"; and  that  the  death  rate  is  "raised." 

Would  it  be  possible  for  any  evidence  to  be  more  con- 


5-*  rbid.,  pages  129-30. 
"^  Ibid.,  page  142. 
5«Ibid.,  pages  151-2. 


130  THE  PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

demnatory  ?  But  the  same  condemnation  follows  in  the 
tracks  of  fear  wherever  we  turn.  When  it  comes  to  the 
effects  of  fear  on  the  secretions  of  the  body  in  general,^^ 
all  secretions  are  retarded,  modified,  deranged  and  lessened 
in  quantity.  The  saliva  becomes  lessened  in  quantity  and 
inferior  in  quality.  During  fright  the  mouth  becomes  very 
dry.  As  to  metabolism,  fear  "deranges  the  nutrition. '^ 
The  digestive  power  is  lessened,  for  all  the  secretions  are 
depreciated  in  both  quality  and  quantity.  The  mammary 
secretions  are  so  altered  that  they  are  often  poisoned.  The 
quantity  of  urine  is  also  decreased  and  the  quality  altered. 

When  we  pass  on  to  the  subject  of  digestion  proper,  our 
story  remains  unchanged.  Exactly  the  same  unanimous 
condemnation  rests  upon  the  shoulders  of  fear.  In  the 
words  of  Sadler,  fear  "lessens  or  entirely  suspends  secretion 
of  the  gastric  juice."  The  quality  is  also  "deteriorated," 
and  the  "digestive  strength  is  weak,"  while  psychic  dys- 
pepsia is  both  "produced  and  aggravated."  The  stomach 
movements  are  weak,  and  the  digestion  time  lengthened 
under  the  influence  of  fear.  The  same  fear  is  the  "chief 
cause  of  nervous  dyspepsia,"  and  also  an  excitant  of  the 
vomiting  center.  The  intestinal  secretions  become  scant, 
weak  and  inactive,  and  the  flow  thereof  very  inactive.  The 
movement  of  the  entire  alimentary  canal  becomes  irregular 
and  sluggish — and  "constipation  is  increased ".^^ 

What  wonder  is  it  that  fear  is  the  demon  that  it  is  when 
we  thus  consider  how  it  strikes  at  the  basic  organic  func- 
tionings  of  our  physical  organization  ?  No  part  of  organic 
makeup  can  possibly  escape  the  poisonous  effects  of  fear. 
Continuing  his  indictment  under  the  heading  of  "Nutri- 
tion and  Metabolism,"  Dr.  Sadler  says  that  fear  "decreases 
and  retards  cell  nutrition. ' '  That  is  to  say,  it  carries  on  a 
starvation  process  against  the  twenty-five  trillion  cells 
in  the  human  body.  Digestion  is  "deranged" — assimila- 
tion "lessened"  —  well-being  "decreased"  —  oxidation 
"decreased" — appetite  "weakened" — bodily  weight  "de- 

57  Ibid.,  page  160. 
es  Ibid.,  pages  171-2. 


FEAE:    ITS    PHYSICAL   EFFECTS  131 

creased."  Fear  also  ^'deranges  the  secretory  action"  of 
the  ductless  glands,  and  "increases  the  size  of  the  thyroid 
gland".'' 

Taking  up  the  subject  of  respiration,  fear  remains  the 
same  old  robber.  Sadler  chalks  up  against  it  the  black 
marks  of  ' '  quick,  irregular,  shallow  breathing ' ' — ' '  Greatly- 
lessened  oxygen-intake" — "Decreased  carbon  dioxide  out- 
put ' ' — '  *  Flat  and  hollow  chest ' ' — ' '  Decreased  strength ' ' — 
"Lessened  capacity" — "Aggravated  coughing" — "Yawn- 
ing"— "Hiccoughs  rendered  uncontrollable  and  even  fatal" 
— "Respiratory  curve  gradually  decreased" — ^" Nerve  con- 
trol weakened  ".^° 

Is  it  necessary  to  indict  further?  Yes — ^let  us  go  on 
and  expose  to  the  limit  this  serpent  of  fear  which  mankind 
has  been  hugging  to  its  bosom  for  ages.  Sadler's  testimony 
on  the  muscles  is,  that  "Energy  and  endurance  are  de- 
creased ' '  by  fear,  while  * '  fatigue  is  increased. "  "  The  gait 
is  dragging  and  slovenly,  and  the  carriage  stooped  and 
weak."  "The  galvanometer  test  shows  great  deflection  in 
psychic  response. "  "  Spasm  is  favored  and  increased ' '  and 
"relaxation  is  rendered  difficult."  "Expression  becomes 
downcast  and  sorrowful"  and  "work  capacity  decreased." 
"The  stomach  movements  are  weak  and  intermittent," 
while  in  the  field  of  sensation,  "fear  perverts  and  misin- 
terprets." The  situation  is  summed  up  in  one  term — 
"muscular  panic ".^^ 

That  same  panic  is  carried  directly  to  the  field  of  the 
skin.  According  to  Sadler,  fear  makes  "the  complexion 
pale  and  anaemic,  the  circulation  poor  and  chilly,  and  ac- 
tivity sluggish. "  "  The  local  blood  supply  is  spasmodic  and 
disturbed,  and  hands  and  feet  cold."  "The  perspiration 
is  checked,  and  elimination  decreased, ' '  while  the  ' '  electrical, 
reaction  becomes  negative  at  nine  feet  from  the  body." 
"The  nutrition  of  the  skin  is  lessened,"  and  so  is  that  of 
the  hair  and  scalp  to  the  extent  that  **gray  hair  and  bald- 

59  Ibid.,  page  185. 

60  Ibid.,  page  197. 

61  Ibid.,  pages  207-8. 


132         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

ness  are  produced."  ''Sensation  becomes  abnormal,  pro- 
ducing itching  and  pain."  "Skin  diseases  are  produced 
and  increased  in  severity,  while  both  chills  and  fevers  are 
produced  and  increased  ".^^ 

But  when  it  comes  to  the  brain  itself,  the  organ  of  the 
mind,  and  to  the  nervous  system,  then  it  is  that  fear  plays 
its  most  deadly  havoc.  Sadler's  words  are,  that  fear  pro- 
duces "congestion  of  the  brain,  headache  and  insomnia; 
confused  and  disordered  action  of  the  brain;  unnatural  and 
disturbed  sleep,  and  brain  fag."  In  energy,  the  brain  ac- 
tion and  vigor  are  both  lessened.  "Hypochondria  is  produced 
and  apoplexy  favored."  "The  strength  ends  in  despon- 
dency and  health  despair".*'^ 

And  on  the  general  nervous  system  the  story  is  the  same. 
Fear  "causes  nervousness  and  tremors,  and  produces  nerve 
starvation."  It  "decreases  the  strength  and  inhibits  the 
trophic  nerves."  Tt  "favors  convulsions,  may  produce  fits, 
and  leads  to  hysteria  and  unbalanced  nerves."  It  also 
causes  certain  forms  of  epilepsy  and  "increases  the  severity 
of  others."  It  also  "causes  partial  paralysis  and  loss  of 
function;  causes,  aggravates  and  perpetuates  pain;  and 
produces  general  nervousness".^* 

Probably  in  all  literature,  there  is  no  more  complete 
indictment  against  anything  than  Dr.  Sadler  makes  against 
fear.  The  case  is  unanimous.  Great  light  is  thus  thrown 
upon  the  fact  that  humanity  is  becoming  more  and  more 
neurotic  every  year — and  why  our  catalogue  of  ills  is  mul- 
tiplying with  such  alarming  rapidity.  Fear  is  the  funda- 
mental cause  of  it  all.  Insomnia,  hysteria,  neurasthenia  and 
hypochondria  are  all  largely  the  result  of  fear.  Civilized 
races  are  shackled  today  by  the  bondage  of  fettered  minds 
and  physical  maladies — all  primarily  due  to  fear — and  all 
preventable  by  a  sane  psychic  education.  The  diseases  of 
savagery  are  due  to  fear  and  filth.  The  diseases  of  civiliza- 
tion are  due  to  more  of  fear  and  less  of  filth. 


62Ibifl.,  pages  218-9. 
«3Ibi(l.,  pages  227-8. 
«*Ibid.,  page  240. 


FKAK:    TTS    rTTVSKWT,   EFFECTS  ^:V^ 

But  suppose  \vc  add  tlu>  li'stitmuiy  of  otluM-s.  ]\l()sso,  tlio 
Italinii  aulliority  on  l\'ar,  lias  Iho  following  to  say:  "I'luo- 
tioii  causos  gi'cator  oiuT^y  in  tlio  cliomical  procc^ssos  of  tho 
l)r;iiii ;  IIkm'c  is  a  inodilicaliou  in  tlio  milrilion  of  Iho  colls, 
and  (he  nrrvous  force  is  more  rapiilly  cotisumcd "."''*  ** Pliny 
in  spcakiiij::  of  i'vnv  inakinjj:  ono  close  llie  eyes,  relates  that 
anion<xs(  twenty  "gladiators,  scarcely  two  wimm^  fonnd  ^vllo  did 
not  wink  when  sndilenly  nicnactNl".'^'^  *'()n(^  of  the  most 
terrible  effects  of  fear  is  tin*  i>nralysis  which  allows  neither 
of  escape  nor  d(^l\'nse.  The  history  oi*  hat  tics  an«l  luas- 
sacrcs,  the  chronicles  of  the  courts  of  justice,  are  all  fidl  ol' 
frightful  occurrences,  when  terror  stranj^flcd  ev(Mi  tho  in- 
stinct of  tlij::ht  in  the  victim ir(n-ses  tremhle  when 

they  see   a   tig(M*   and    an*   no    lon^^er   ahh*    to   run.      I'veii 

nioidvcys  can  not  move  when  in  threat   fear It    is  a 

well  known  fact  that  fear  may  result  in  sudden  dcilh. 
Bichat  maintained  that  it   was  cssiMitially  ])aralysis  of  the 

h(\'irt   which   eaus(\s   divith    in    sli-on;]f  (Miiolious If    I 

wci'e  to  menliou  the  nanu>s  of  all  the  maladies  thoufrht  to 
to  he  produced  by  fear,  1  should  he  ohlij^^cd  to  copy  iu\'irly 

the  whole  index  of  a  ])atholo}^ical  text  hook Tt  is  an 

inconipi'cluMisihle  ])h(Miomcuoii,  but  yet  aditntti^l  by  all 
medical  writci-s  that  fear  may  of  itself  "^ivi*  rise  to  ])he- 
nomena  exactly  rescnd)lin<jf  those  of  hydro|)hohic  infection. 
A  celehrated  ])hysician,  I'osiniilhui,  Ix^lim'iMl  that  fear  alouo 
was  the  cause  of  hydrophobia,  and  n<»t  th<'  bit(»  or  the  saliva 

of  the  (lo;x It  is  ofhMi  iin]>()ssi])le  f(U*  the  physician  to 

distiii}2:uish  hypoclio!idi-iac  hy<lroj)hobia  frotn  true  rabies; 
even  the  maiuKM*  of  d(\ith  is  no  ^uid(\  for  tetaTuc  contrac- 
tions of  th(>  n>spiratory  orprans  n]>p(Mir  also  in  hypochondria(! 

hydroj)hobia l\T(U*e  especially  durin*]:  epidcMuics  does 

f(»ar  play  havoc During  the  earth(|uake  in  Rome  in 

17().'?,  althoujjfh  Tiot  a  sinj^h*  pcM'son  was  kilhMl,  scvei-al  died 
of   f(W'(M*   through    f(\ar,   many   woukmi    miscarried,   and   all 

bed  iidden  invalids  f^rovv  worse Physicians  who  havo 

described  tin*  dreadful  spectacle  of  the  lazarets  durinp:  epi- 

""ll.iJ.,  pn^M'    KI.     Vvom   riiiiius  HisforiH  N:if unilis,  xi.,  -tSO. 


134  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

demies,  mention  the  great  number  who  die  victims  of  fear, 
in  many  of  whom  the  symptoms  of  plague  had  not  even  ap- 
peared  What  horror  we  should  feel  could  we  read 

year  by  year  the  story  of  those  who  have  succumbed  to 
nostalgia,   grief,  humiliation!  ....  There   are  men  who 

have  through  fear  lost  consciousness,  sight  or  speech 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  fear  sobers  the  drunk  "/^ 

A  little  further  on,  Mosso  then  makes  the  significant  in- 
quiry :  * '  Of  what  use  are  the  arbitrary  and  imaginary  dis- 
tinctions that  philosophers  have  made  in  the  functions  of 
the  mind  when  they  cannot  be  distinguished  from  those  of 
the  body?"  That  question  strikes  the  nail  square  on  the 
head.  The  mind  is  a  reality  just  as  fully  as  the  body  is. 
The  mind  has  its  own  actual  material  foundations,  and  as 
an  operator  thereon,  it  is  not  only  delivering  its  mental 
messages  to  every  cell  in  the  body — but  it  at  the  same  time 
in  that  very  process  is  also  the  governing  spirit  of  the  body. 
The  mind  is  at  all  times  lending  vital  status  of  some  kind 
and  degree  to  the  body.  For  this  reason,  the  mind  is  not 
even  second — it  is  first.  It  plays  second  fiddle  for  nothing 
or  nobody.  That  position  belongs  to  the  body.  The.  mind 
is  not  an  influence  in  the  body.  It  is  the  influence.  It  is 
erroneous  to  say  that  man  has  a  mind.  Man  has  not  a 
mind.    Man  is  a  mind — and  has  a  body. 

Indeed  it  is  not  at  all  strange  that  Mosso  is  able  to 
continue  as  follows :  *  *  The  consciousness  of  strength  makes 
stronger.  The  history  of  medicine  is  full  of  the  marvelous 
effects  of  confidence.  If  we  could  cite  all  the  examples  of 
hysterical  women,  nervous,  melancholy,  paralytic  men,  who 
on  the  simple  word  of  the  physician,  through  faith  in  the 
efficiency  of  some  remedy,  have  taken  courage  and  re- 
covered, we  should  see  that  every  day  wonders  and  miracles 
worthy  of  the  saints  are  performed.  Neither  may  we  say 
that  it  is  all  the  effect  of  fancy,  or  imagination,  because  the 
modification  of  the  circulation  in  the  brain  of  one  who  reso- 
lutely determines  to  overcome  a  difficulty  produces  such  an 
increase  of  energy  in  the  nerve  centers  ....  that  we  some- 

67  Ibid.,  pages  236-59. 


FEAR:    ITS    PHYSICAL   EFFECTS  135 

times  see  deeds  performed  by  the  pusillanimous  such  as  we 
never  expected  of  them".^^ 

Truly,  there  is  nothing  fanciful  about  the  effects  of  the 
mind.  It  is  simply  in  on  the  ground  floor  as  the  master 
workman  in  every  activity  of  life.  It  is  the  foundation  of 
every  function  in  the  human  body.  According  to  the 
deeply  ingrained  tone  of  thought — such  will  be  the  tone 
and  vigor  of  all  organic  functioning.  Under  the  fear  tone 
thought,  the  mind,  the  thinking  is  not  alone  different — the 
whole  organization  is  different.  Every  cell  is  different — 
every  nerve  is  different — every  muscle  is  different — every 
secretion  is  different — every  breath  is  different — every  func- 
tion is  different — the  whole  body  is  different,  both  in  the 
smallest  detail  and  in  the  largest  complex.  As  well  try  to 
think  of  the  fear  thought  as  being  isolated  from  the  entire 
body,  as  it  would  be  to  think  of  throwing  a  cup  of  strych- 
nine into  a  barrel  of  water  without  the  entire  contents  be- 
coming poison.    The  analogy  is  an  exact  one. 

Now,  in  the  last  quotation  above,  Mosso  speaks  of  **  con- 
fidence.'^  He  uses  the  term  in  contrast  to  fear.  Sadler 
throughout  his  work  does  the  same  thing,  except  that  he 
speaks  of  it  as  ''faith."  Sadler,  however,  devotes  one-half 
of  his  entire  book  to  "  faith. '^  His  treatment  of  fear  is 
paralleled  on  every  page  by  his  presentation  of  the  case 
of  faith.  His  testimony  in  behalf  of  faith  is  as  overwhelm- 
ingly unanimous  and  favorable  as  his  handling  of  fear  is 
adverse.  He  pronounces  faith  the  greatest  health  and 
curative  agent  known  to  man.  He  shows  that  no  health  is 
at  all  possible  where  the  faith  state  of  mind  is  not  present. 

Now,  what  is  the  science  of  faith?  It  is  simply  this — 
that  not  even  the  shadow  of  fear  is  present  in  either  the 
mind  itself,  or  in  the  substance  of  the  body.  Fear  is  ab- 
sent, not  only  immediately  from  the  mind,  but  also  in 
terms  of  every  possible  past  effect,  the  moment  that  com- 
plete faith  takes  possession  of  one.  There  is  no  fear  what- 
ever. That  means  that  faith — confidence — is  present. 
Under  such  circumstances,   fear — the  great  disturber — is 

68  Ibid.,  page  276. 


136  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

not  present  to  carry  on  its  unholy  work.  Like  a  sliver  in 
the  hand — such  is  fear — withdraw  it — and  the  hand  is  for 
the  first  time  ready  to  begin  the  process  of  getting  well. 
That  principle  is  uniformly  true  throughout  the  realms  of 
Nature — the  moment  that  we  drive  out  the  cause  of  damage, 
Nature  is  permitted  to  go  on  functioning  in  peace.  The 
science  of  faith  is  therefore  merely  the  science  of  the  ab- 
sence of  fear.  Hence  it  is  no  wonder  that  faith  is  such  a 
weapon  in  performing  apparent  miracles — for  it  establishes 
the  conditions  necessary  for  health.  The  fact  that  it  does 
so,  makes  it  the  matchless  curative  instrument.  The  mes- 
sage which  faith  sends  out  to  the  twenty-five  trillion  cells 
of  the  body  is  one  of  welcome,  buoyancy,  poise,  peace,  har- 
mony, nutriment,  love,  good  cheer.  It  is  no  wonder  that 
under  such  circumstances,  afflictions  of  all  kinds  are  ban- 
ished. Sadler's  conclusion  in  the  matter  is  as  follows: 
**Fear  then  is  seen  to  be  the  one  great  barrier  to  the 
recovery  from  sickness,  and  the  healing  of  disease.  Faith 
becomes  the  master  key  which  unlocks  many  an  ancient 
medical  mystery  and  explains  many  apparent  modern 
miracles.  Faith  is  the  great  key  of  mental  healing.  Mental 
rest  is  the  keystone  of  the  arch  of  health '  '.^^ 

Dr.  Salisbury  delivers  a  telling  blow  against  fear  when 
he  says  that,  "Fidelity  of  body  is  as  nothing  if  not  rein- 
forced by  fidelity  of  soul."  Statements  of  that  kind  get 
right  down  to  the  foundation  of  things — for  what  would 
even  the  best  foundation  in  itself  amount  to,  providing  that 
foundation  rests  upon  the  sand  ?  The  master  mind  of  Plato 
clearly  perceived  this  fact  when  twenty-three  centuries  ago 
he  uttered  the  following  words:  **My  belief  is  not  that  a 
good  body  will  by  its  own  excellence,  make  a  good  soul ;  but 
on  the  contrary,  that  a  good  soul  will  by  its  excellence  ren- 
der the  body  as  perfect  as  it  can  be".^°  This  places  the 
facts  exactly  as  they  are,  namely:  the  mind  comes  first; 
the  body  is  only  second. 

It  is  the  failure  to  recognize  this  tremendous  fact  that 

69 W.  S.  Sadler:  Physiology  of  Faith  and  Fear,  pages  107-8. 
^^  Plato :  Bepublie,  page  99. 


FEAR:    ITS    PHYSICAL    EFFECTS  137 

has  given  rise  to  so  many  expressions  like  the  following: 
"Physical  perfection  serves  to  assure  moral  perfection. 
There  is  nothing  more  tyrannical  than  an  enfeebled  organ- 
ism. Nothing  sooner  paralyzes  the  free  activity  of  the 
reason,  the  flight  of  the  imagination,  and  the  exercise  of 
reflection,  nothing  sooner  dries  up  the  sources  of  human 
thought  than  a  sickly  body  whose  functions  languish,  and 
for  which  every  effort  is  a  source  of  suffering  "."^^ 

This  statement  is  very  true  in  the  sense  that  the  con- 
dition of  the  body  reflects  itself  back  upon  the  mind.  But 
it  is  wholly  erroneous  and  misleading  when  it  proceeds  with 
the  inference  that  the  body  comes  first  and  makes  the 
mind.  Such  an  assumption  is  a  total  stranger  to  truth 
when  it  leaves  the  impression  that  the  body  is  an  indepen- 
dent variable- — and  that  the  mind  is  the  dependent  variable. 
It  is  but  the  epitome  of  error  when  it  would  proceed  w^ith 
the  supposition  that  the  body  is  not  the  condition  and  result 
of  the  mind.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  the  bad  con- 
dition of  the  body  adversely  affecting  the  mind,  is  nothing 
more  or  less  than  the  boomerang  of  a  wrong  mind  return- 
ing to  itself.  This  must  be  accepted  as  the  real  condition 
of  affairs.  Any  other  factors  entering  in  are  but  acces- 
sories. Let  us  accept  the  burning  fact  that  for  bad  physical 
conditions  we  must  go  straight  to  the  source  of  bad  mental 
conditions,  operating  through  either  ourselves  or  through 
social  environment  and  through  the  ages.  All  bad  physical 
conditions  are  exclusively  explained  by  ignorance  of  some 
kind  obtaining  in  the  human  mind — and  the  greatest  ignore 
ance  of  all  is  fear. 

But  our  civilization  is  completely  saturated  with  the 
other  type  of  thought.  The  body  is  first,  last  and  always — 
in  everything.  This  fact  is  further  well  reflected  by  the 
words  of  another  writer :  * '  The  consensus  of  opinion  in  the 
present  age  is,  that  the  best  basis  for  spiritual,  moral  and 
intellectual  growth  is  a  sound  and  healthy  body."^^  Most 
assuredly  we  must  have  sound  bodies,  in  order  to  have  sound 


71  F.  Marion.    Quoted  from  Putnam:  Manual  Pedagogics,  page  26. 

72  Mrs.  T.  W.  Birney:   Childhood,  page  22. 


138  THE   PUEPOSE    OF  EDUCATION 

minds — but ' '  the  present  age  "  is  on  the  wrong  track.  *  *  The 
best  basis  for  spiritual,  moral  and  intellectual  growth"  is — 
not — "a  sound  and  healthy  body" — but  "a  sound  and 
healthy"  mind!  The  body  is  not  the  basis  at  all!  The 
mind  itself  is  the  basis !  Mrs.  Birney  is  right  in  acclaiming 
for  "a  sound  and  healthy  body" — but  she  is  completely 
wrong  in  her  conception  when  she  assumes  that  the  mind 
is  fundamentally  a  flowering  of  the  body,  rather  than  vice 
versa.  Most  functional  and  chronic  diseases,  for  example, 
go  straight  to  derangements  in  the  nervous  system — the 
very  harp  upon  which  fear  played  its  first  tune — and  the 
very  instrument  on  which  it  always  plays.  "With  great 
nerve  centers  depressed  and  fatigued  and  poisoned  by  the 
toxicity  of  fear,  it  is  small  wonder  that  bad  conditions  in 
the  body  soon  come  back  to  the  mind.  Chickens  always 
come  home  to  roost,  whether  they  rest  or  not. 

Speaking  of  the  effects  of  the  mind  on  the  body,  no  less 
a  personage  than  Goethe  has  this  to  say:  "I  was  once  in- 
evitably exposed  to  the  infection  of  malignant  fever,  and 
warded  off  the  disease  only  by  means  of  determined  volition. 
It  is  almost  incredible  in  such  cases  how  the  will  can  effect. 
It  seems  to  permeate  one's  whole  being,  and  to  render  the 
condition  of  the  body  active  enough  to  repel  all  harmful 
influences.  Fear  is  a  condition  of  sloth  in  which  any  enemy 
may  take  possession  of  us".'^^ 

It  seems  to  me  that  no  indictment  against  anything 
could  be  stronger.  Fear  disturbs  and  paralyzes  the  very 
marrow  of  every  single  functioning  process  in  the  human 
organization.  Wherever  the  hand  of  fear  is  extended,  there 
it  leaves  its  trail  of  poison.  Operating  through  the  mind, 
fear  lays  its  ax  to  the  very  roots  of  every  cell  in  the  human 
body.  By  so  doing,  it  makes  drunk  with  weakness  and 
degeneracy  the  twenty -five  trillion  cell  workers  on  which  all 
health,  all  harmony,  all  energy,  all  action  must  finally 
rest — for  in  the  last  analysis,  disease  is  a  derangement  of 
the  functions  of  the  cell,  or  a  degeneration  of  the  substance 

73  W.  Goethe.  Quoted  from  W.  S.  Sadler:  Physiology  of  Faith 
and  Fear,  269. 


FEAE:    ITS    PHYSICAL   EFFECTS  139 

of  the  cell.  Fear  is  the  canker  which  attacks  the  cell  in 
both  respects — function  and  substance. 

But  let  it  be  noted  carefully  that  there  are  two  phases 
of  fear — the  presence  of  some  acute  and  specific  fear  in  the 
mind  and  the  body — and  the  existence  of  general  and 
chronic  fear  effects.  Under  the  former  phase  the  victim 
is  conscious  of  his  weakness  and  his  agitation ;  while  under 
the  latter  phase,  he  may  not  be  conscious  of  his  condition, 
but  he  is  nevertheless  a  victim  of  his  psychic  and  physical 
state.  The  point  is,  that  one  need  not  necessarily  be  terror- 
ized into  convulsions  of  fear  in  order  to  contract  some  acute 
disease  that  is  epidemic  in  the  community — the  general 
chronic  fear  status  of  the  victim  may  of  itself  be  such  as  to 
have  the  vital  resistance  of  the  body  so  reduced  as  to  invite 
every  disease  with  which  it  comes  in  contact.  The  victim 
of  fear  is  therefore  a  victim  in  two  ways — acutely  and 
chronicly. 

Then  too  this  question  may  be  asked :  How  far  can  the 
mind  of  the  mother  affect  the  child  in  utero?  This  is  a 
question  which  has  been  discussed  pro  and  con  a  great 
deal  on  account  of  the  claims  of  many  that  children  have 
been  born  *' marked '^  in  exact  accordance  with,  and  on 
account  of  some  strong  and  vivid  mental  experience  on  the 
part  of  the  mother.  Of  late  years,  however,  most  medical 
authority  of  the  conventional  type,  has  uttered  a  positive 
denial  of  any  such  a  possibility  as  a  marked  child  due  to 
the  mental  experiences  of  the  mother.  But  all  of  such  con- 
clusions, I  believe,  have  completely  overlooked  the  psychic 
significance  of  the  human  mind.  It  is  of  course  a  fact 
that  there  is  no  direct  physical  connection  between  mother 
and  child  for  the  blood  to  circulate — so  from  this  stand- 
point, it  is  true  that  no  fear  poison  generated  in  the  blood 
of  the  mother  can  directly  reach  that  of  the  child — but  let 
us  note  this  very  important  fact,  namely :  There  does  exist 
a  direct  connection  between  the  nervous  systems  of  mother 
and  child.  This  means  that  the  mental  messages  of  the 
mother  can  reach  the  nervous  organization  of  the  child  just 
as  completely  as  they  can  her  own.  Furthermore,  if  mental 


140  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

states  of  mind  are  generators  of  chemicals  in  the  body — 
and  they  are — then  the  same  fear  messages  which  produce 
chemical  poisons  in  the  body  of  the  mother,  will  also  pro- 
duce those  same  poisons  in  the  body  of  the  child.  To  just 
what  extent  this  fact  might  be  able  to  operate  in  the  marking 
of  the  unborn  child,  we  are  perhaps  unable  to  say  positively. 
The  fact  does  remain,  however,  that  the  unborn  child  is  in 
close  association  with  the  mother  through  the  avenue  of 
the  mental  message — and  because  of  this  fact,  I  for  one, 
personally  believe  that  the  mind  of  the  mother  can  affect  the 
unborn  child  very  greatly  indeed — if  not  to  the  extent  of 
marking  physically,  then  at  least  to  the  extent  of  mental  and 
nervous  effects.  I  believe  that  the  psychic  chemistry  of  the 
mother  is  to  a  very  great  extent  the  psychic  chemistry  of 
the  unborn  child. 

In  closing  this  chapter,  I  say  that  it  is  high  time  for 
civilization  to  wake  up  and  rub  the  sleep  from  its  eyes — 
and  to  set  its  understanding  in  order  on  the  meaning  of  the 
human  mind  as  it  operates  within  the  human  body — and 
above  all  to  drive  out  this  stealthy  wolf  of  fear  from  the 
midst  of  our  choicest  folds — for,  verily,  ''Thoughts  are 
things" — "for  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  so  is  he.'* 
The  evidence  against  fear  alone  most  abundantly  proves 
that  it  is  dangerous  and  deadly  for  mankind  to  slumber 
longer.  But,  above  all,  in  leaving  this  chapter,  let  us  bear 
ever  in  mind,  that  the  first,  the  paramount  wreckage  of 
fear  is  a  mental  one.  The  physical  wreckage  is  secondary 
— it  is  but  a  symptom,  a  product  of  the  mental  wreckage. 

In  the  next  chapter,  fear  will  be  considered  in  its  rela- 
tion to  childhood. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL   INTEGRITY 

FEAR:   ITS   RELATION  TO   CHILDHOOD 

In  the  preceding  chapter  the  physical  effects  of  fear 
were  pointed  out.  In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  review 
the  flourishing  of  fear  in  its  first  field — childhood. 

In  all  history,  there  has  been  no  greater  crime  than  the 
permitted  and  produced  play  of  fear  in  the  mind  of  the 
child.  That  is  crime  one  on  the  calendar  of  civilization. 
It  is  in  childhood  that  most  of  the  unholy  seeds  of  fear  are 
sown  and  planted.  There  they  are  spread  broadcast  on  the 
most  plastic  soil  kno\\Ti  to  all  creation.  It  is  in  that  mar- 
vel ously  wise  manner  that  civilization  lays  the  foundation 
for  the  future  of  the  individual !  How  amazing,  to  start  in 
by  wrecking  the  mental  machinery  of  a  child — devastating 
its  nervous  organization — demoralizing  its  physical  func- 
tionings — and  then  ever  expect  that  child  to  develop  into 
anything  but  a  comparative  piece  of  human  wrecTiage!  I 
say — how  amazing !  Still,  like  a  blind  ostrich  our  unseeing 
civilization  mopes  along — and  that  too  with  its  cheery  ego- 
tism undiminished  one  degree ! 

And  here  let  me  warn  every  person  to  find  no  assur- 
ance or  consolation  in  the  proposition  that  *'fear  is  an  in- 
stinct"— and  that  therefore  the  child  inherits  its  fears — 
for  in  all  truth,  that  is  a  falsehood.  It  is  of  course  true 
that  every  child  does  inherit  a  certain  predisposition  toward 
fear — but  what  becomes  of  that  predisposition,  all  depends 
upon  how  society  feeds  it.  The  duty  of  society  should  of 
course  be  plain — namely,  to  starve  every  vestige  of  in- 
stinctive fear  that  is  found  to  obtain  in  the  mind  of  the 
child  from  earliest  infancy — the  very  thing  which  society 
is  most  emphatically  not  doing.    I  have  observed  society 

141 


142  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

too  long  to  be  fooled  on  a  fact  so  patent  as  that.  As  I 
have  stated  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  fear  in  the  mind  of 
the  child  is  permitted  and  produced.  The  fear  process  is 
a  social  one  through  and  through — so  no  one  need  attempt 
to  hide  himself  behind  the  instinctive  shadows  of  fear  at 
all — because  it  will  do  him  no  good  in  the  light  of  all  the 
facts  that  conspire  against  him.  Society  simply  pets  and 
coaxes  and  pampers  fear — and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  For 
every  ounce  of  fear  that  Nature  has  imposed  on  mankind, 
society  has  imposed  its  tons.  Therefore,  let  society  prepare 
to  shoulder  the  overwhelming  burden  of  the  fear  indict- 
ment— and  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  there  is  within 
the  mind  of  every  child  a  certain  tendency  to  fear,  society 
becomes  all  the  more  blameworthy  that  it  does  not  arouse 
itself  to  a  sense  of  its  high  duty  in  the  matter,  and  check- 
mate fear — instead  of  cultivating  it  so  assiduously. 

Every  atom  of  fear  injected  into  the  mind  of  childhood 
is  due  to  just  one  thing — adult  ignorance ;  first,  ignorance  of 
the  laws  and  significance  of  mentality ;  and,  second,  ignor- 
ance concerning  rational  methods  of  directing  and  disciplin- 
ing childhood.  Not  one  adult  in  one  hundred  knows  any- 
thing about  the  relation  of  the  human  mind  to  life — thanks 
to  an  education  so  long  obsessed  with  ''social"  aims — 
and  perhaps  not  one  in  a  thousand  knows  anything  about 
the  government  of  children,  save  on  the  diabolical  platform 
of  fear  and  terror.  It  is  on  the  duplex  pedestal  of  this  two- 
fold piece  of  ''cultural"  ignorance  that  an  unenlightened 
world  proceeds  to  deal  with  childhood.  Fear  is  the  easy 
and  handy  weapon  employed  by  the  ignorant  adult  to  whip 
the  child  into  such  a  fit  of  terror  that  it  will  "behave"! 
This  conscious  and  deliberate  use  of  fear,  plus  the  innocent 
use  of  more  fear  at  all  times  by  the  same  ignorant  adult — 
the  combination  constitutes  the  cross  upon  which  humanity 
is  being  crucified. 

But  it  is  fundamentally  in  the  home  where  this  great 
fear  tragedy  of  childhood  is  being  carried  on.  It  is  of 
course  operating  throughout  the  range  of  our  civilization, 
but  the  home  is  the  greatest  sinner  of  all — not  because  school 


FEAR:    ITS   RELATION   TO    CHILDHOOD  143 

and  society  are  any  less  ignorant  in  this  great  field,  but 
because  the  home  gets  the  first  chance  at  the  process  of 
crucifixion,  on  account  of  the  home's  being  almost  the 
exclusive  guardian  of  the  child  during  about  the  first  six 
years  of  child  life — that  period  which  is  at  the  same  time 
the  most  plastic  of  all  the  years  of  life.  However,  let  the 
school  take  no  consolation  in  this  fact.  It  is  the  business 
of  education  to  point  the  way  with  a  set  of  incandescent 
signal  lights  that  never  grow  dim — a  thing  which  education 
has  never  yet  done,  because  education  has  never  yet  been 
familiar  with  her  duties.  Nor  should  education  suffer  her- 
self to  find  any  consolation  in  the  fact  of  her  not  knowing 
her  duties — for,  as  Socrates  has  said  in  one  of  his  wise 
paradoxes :  *'It  is  better  to  sin  knowingly  than  ignorantly." 
Perhaps  ninety-nine  out  of  every  one  hundred  can  tell 
of  childhood  terrors  that  kept  them  in  clutches.  The  case 
is  well  put  by  Mosso:  *' Anxiety,  fear,  horror  will  twine 
themselves  perpetually  around  the  memory,  like  deadly  ivy 
choking  the  light  of  reason.  At  every  step  we  remember 
the  terrors  of  childhood;  the  vaults  of  a  cellar,  the  dark 
arch  of  a  bridge,  the  cross-roads  losing  themselves  in  dark- 
ness, the  crosses  hidden  amidst  the  bushes  of  a  cemetery,  a 
dim  light  flickering  awa}^  in  the  darkness,  a  lonely  cave 
washed  by  the  waves  of  the  sea,  the  ruins  of  an  uninhabited 
castle,  the  mysterious  silence  of  a  deserted  tower,  breathe 
out  the  memory  of  childish  fear.  The  eye  of  the  child  seems 
to  cast  one  more  look  on  the  scenes  from  the  very  depths 
of  the  soul.  Not  only  the  mother,  the  nurse,  the  maid,  and 
the  servants,  but  hundreds  of  generations  have  worked  to 
denaturalize  the  brains  of  children  with  the  same  barbarity 
of  those  wild  tribes  who  distort  the  heads  of  their  children 
by  pressure,  deforming  what  they  think  to  beautify.  The 
children  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  used  to  be  frightened 
with  lamias,  which  would  suck  their  blood,  with  the  masks 
of  the  atelland,  the  Cyclops,  or  with  black  Mercury  who 
would  carry  them  away.  And  this  most  pernicious  error 
in  education  has  not  yet  disappeared,  for  children  are  still 
frightened  with  the  bogey-man,  with  stories  of  imaginary 


144  THE   PUEPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

monsters,  the  ogre,  the  hobgoblin,  the  wizard  and  the 
witches.  Every  now  and  then  children  are  told :  '  This  will 
peck  at  you.  That  will  bite  you.  Now  I'll  call  the  dog. 
There's  the  sweep  coming' — and  a  hundred  other  terrors 
which  make  the  fears  well  up  and  spoil  their  dispositions, 
making  their  life  a  burden  by  incessantly  agitating  them 
with  threats,  with  tortures  which  will  make  them  timid  and 
shrinking  the  rest  of  their  lives.  The  imagination  of  a 
child  is  far  more  vivid  and  excitable  than  in  adults '  '.^* 

It  is  positively  inhuman  to  ignore  the  fears  of  child- 
hood. But  it  is  far  worse,  either  deliberately  or  ignorantly, 
to  cultivate  any  fear  tendencies  that  may  already  be  pres- 
ent in  the  mind  of  any  child.  What  might  we  say  then  of 
that  person  who  would  inject  outright  new  fears  into  the 
consciousness  of  childhood  ?  No  language  could  possibly  be 
condemning  enough — ^because  all  odds  are  tremendously 
against  any  child  in  the  fear  battle.  Instead  of  encourag- 
ing fear  growth  in  any  mind,  the  sworn  duty  of  every  in- 
dividual and  of  all  society  is  to  do  everything  within  all 
power  to  check  and  destroy  that  fear  development. 

In  all  probability  the  greatest  fear  field  to  which  the 
child  is  first  subjected  is  that  of  ''darkness*'.  In  countless 
ways  fear  of  the  dark  is  suggested  to  the  child,  by  means 
of  a  look — a  word — ^an  action — or  general  conduct  on  the 
part  of  adults.  Some  will  contend  that  since  "fear  is  an 
instinct,"  the  child  is  ''naturally"  afraid  of  the  dark  any- 
way. I  have  even  heard  more  than  one  alleged  child  expert 
make  that  statement.  But  nothing  could  be  farther  from 
the  truth — for,  as  already  pointed  out  in  the  third  para- 
graph of  the  present  chapter,  the  fear  instinct  is  very  largely 
a  mere  passive  or  neutral  predisposition.  As  such  it  is 
ready  to  leap  into  being,  or  to  subside  into  nothingness — 
all  depending  on  the  social  stimulus.  Children  are  not 
unescapably  afraid  of  the  dark  by  virtue  of  instinct,  but 
by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  society  goes  to  work  and  coaxes 
that  latent  tendency  into  active  being.  Fuel  upon  fuel  is 
simply  heaped  upon  a  single  dying  spark — and  all  fanned 

'4  Angelo  Mosso:  Fear,  pages  226-8. 


FEAR:    ITS  RELATION   TO   CHILDHOOD  145 

persistently  into  a  leaping  flame.  The  child  is  permitted 
to  become  afraid  of  the  dark — forced  to  be  afraid  of  the 
dark — ^not  by  old  Mother  Nature — but  by  those  having  the 
child  in  charge.  Then  after  having  done  this,  some  alleged 
authority  on  childhood  has  the  amazing  audacity  to  assert 
that  the  child  is  afraid  of  the  dark  ''because  of  instinct"! 
I  assert  that  the  child's  fear  of  the  dark  is  overwhelmingly 
a  man-made  product — either  positively  produced,  or  else 
passively  permitted  to  develop  for  the  lack  of  some  simple 
instruction  in  the  counter  direction. 

For  example,  I  have  more  than  once  heard  some  member 
of  a  family  say  to  some  other  member:  "For  goodness 
sake,  get  that  child  out  of  that  room — don't  you  know  that 
it  is  in  there  in  the  dark  all  alone ' ' !  And  yet  the  child  gave 
no  thought  whatever  to  the  darkness  until  the  suggestion 
of  fear  and  danger  w-as  planted  directly  into  its  conscious- 
ness. Is  it  any  wonder  that  with  such  remarks  flying  about 
the  consciousness  of  childhood,  the  fear  of  darkness  is  soon 
developed?  I  think  not.  And  yet  some  "expert"  will 
come  along  and  shout  ^'instinctive''! 

On  countless  occasions  I  have  known  either  parents 
or  older  children  to  run  out  of  a  dark  room,  either  with 
actual  fear  or  else  wdth  deliberate  folly,  and  shout  for  the 
benefit  of  some  smaller  child  somewhat  as  follow^s:  "Boo! 
The  bear  is  after  you !  There  comes  the  blackman !  The 
chimney  sweep  is  after  us  I  Ghosts !  I  see  the  bogey-man ! 
The  big  dog — bow-wow !  Run  for  your  life !  Wolf,  wolf — 
gr-r-r-r!  Look  out  for  the  dark!"  Oftentimes  have  I  be- 
held such  conduct—and  its  resulting  terrorization  of  some 
child  who  was  quite  indifferent  to  the  dark  up  to  that  time. 
I  have  also  beheld  the  spectacle  of  even  a  mother  taking 
her  child  to  a  window,  with  hands  up  to  the  sides  of  the 
face,  and  peering  out  into  the  darkness — and  striking  terror 
to  the  heart  of  the  child  by  making  expressions  concerning 
the  darkness,  similar  to  the  ones  just  given.  Then  too  I 
have  often  witnessed  the  spectacle  of  terror-stricken  parents 
or  other  adults  spreading  the  contagion  of  fear  to  the  minds 
of  children,  merely  by  the  presence  of  their  own  excited  eon- 

10 


146         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

duct — without  even  speaking  a  word — ^the  entire  means  of 
communication  consisting  of  facial  expressions,  gestures, 
bodily  attitudes  and  belabored  breathing.  Every  child  is  an 
adept  at  interpreting  such  symbols,  because  the  first  lan- 
guage of  the  child  is  wordless.  Their  presence  and  meaning 
can  never  possibly  escape  any  normal  child — and  not  only 
that,  those  symbols  actually  speak  in  louder  terms  to  the 
child  than  any  words  possibly  could. 

Well,  it  is  through  such  channels  as  the  above,  either 
directed  by  word,  or  suggested  by  action,  that  the  fear  in- 
stinct of  the  child  is  fanned  into  flames  of  consuming  activ- 
ity. The  child  is  afraid  of  the  dark  because  an  exceedingly 
dense  adult  world  starts  the  ball  a-rolling — and  keeps  it 
a-rolling.  Childhood  fear  is  fundamentally  a  social  func- 
tion— and  not  a  biological  one.  In  fact,  there  are  but  very 
few  instincts  that  are  fixed  and  fatal.  Instincts  are  largely 
present  for  us  to  do  about  what  we  please  with  them.  I  am 
convinced  that  this  is  truer  of  the  fear  instinct  than  it  is 
of  any  other  instinct.  It  is  up  to  society  to  face  squarely 
this  issue — and  to  accept  full  blame  for  the  ghosts  and  hob- 
goblins of  the  childhood  world. 

But  if  society  is  to  blame  in  a  positive  way  for  the  child 's 
fear  of  darkness,  it  is  still  more  to  blame  in  a  negative  way 
— that  is,  for  its  failure  to  do  anything  to  help  the  child 
who  in  some  way  or  other  may  already  be  afraid  of  the 
dark.  To  illustrate:  Jean,  a  girl  of  four,  was  somewhat 
afraid  to  go  out  into  a  dark  kitchen  to  get  a  drink  of  water. 
The  mother  of  that  child  was  about  to  go  out  and  get  the 
water  for  her — or  else  to  light  a  lamp  so  that  Jean  could 
go  for  herself.  But  immediately — and  unknown  to  the 
child — I  took  the  liberty  to  intercede.  I  checkmated  the  al- 
ternatives of  the  mother — and  went  out  into  the  dark 
kitchen  myself,  taking  Jean  with  me.  All  the  while  I  kept 
talking  to  Jean  about  the  *' beautiful  dark" — ^how  wonder- 
ful it  was — ^how  nice  it  was  to  be  in  the  dark — ^how  the 
grass  and  the  snow  and  the  birds  and  the  trees  all  love  to 
stay  out  doors  in  the  dark  at  night — and  so  on.  I  pur- 
posely remained  in  the  kitchen  with  the  child  for  some  time 


FEAE:    ITS    RELATION    TO    CHILDHOOD  147 

in  order  to  afford  opportunity  to  talk  about  the  dark  and 
become  accustomed  to  it. 

Well,  to  make  a  long  story  short,  within  two  weeks  Jean 
could  be  sent  into  any  dark  room  in  the  house  any  time  of 
night.  The  lamp  to  which  her  mother  had  already  accus- 
tomed her  in  her  bedroom  was  shortly  taken  away — and 
Jean  was  going  up  stairs  in  the  dark — going  to  bed  in  the 
dark — and  sleeping  in  the  dark.  Had  the  mother  had  the 
exclusive  training  of  that  child,  the  fear  of  darkness  would 
have  been  fully  and  vividly  developed,  instead  of  com- 
pletely eliminated. 

And  what  is  true  of  darkness  is  pretty  much  true  of 
nearly  every  other  fear  tendency  in  childhood.  The  predispo- 
sition to  fear  may  in  some  vague  measure  always  be  present, 
but  the  entire  field  of  cultivation  is  man's  to  operate  just 
as  he  will.  All  fears  can  be  dealt  with  in  about  the  same 
manner  suggested  in  the  case  of  darkness  above.  The  gen- 
eral principle  is,  always  to  lead  the  child  to  see  that  its 
fears  are  unfounded,  either  by  explanation  verbally,  or  else 
through  assurance  by  means  of  conduct — or  again  if  neces- 
sary by  talking  with  the  child  freely  and  having  it  tell  fully 
what  its  fear  is  in  any  particular  case.  Above  all,  under  no 
circumstances,  must  a  child  ever  be  permitted  to  endure  his 
fears  in  silence.  The  first  avenue  of  relief  always  is,  either 
complete  expression  concerning  one's  fears — or  else  a  for- 
getting of  them  by  having  created  in  the  mind  some  other 
situation.  As  in  the  case  of  every  other  field  of  life,  ''An 
honest  confession  is  good  for  the  soul"  when  it  comes  to 
fears,  providing  those  confessions  are  listened  to  by  sym- 
pathetic and  intelligent  souls  who  are  bent  upon  helping  the 
child  out  of  his  difficulties,  rather  than  scaring  him  still 
worse. 

Then  too  there  is  another  fact  which  must  ever  be  borne 
in  mind  by  every  prudent  adult :  The  child  is  oftentimes 
fearful  of  things  which  parents  and  others  may  not  suspect. 
It  is  always  the  duty  of  those  in  association  with  children 
to  anticipate,  but  with  extreme  prudence,  what  the  child's 
possible  fears  may  be.     Hall  in  his  questionnaire  study  of 


148  THE   PUEPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

the  fears  of  1701  persons  found  enumerated  such  objects  of 
fear  as  thunder  and  lightning — high  wind — cyclones — cloud 
,$orn},s — ^meteors — ^northern  lightsi — comets — ^fog — storms — 
eclipses — extremely  hot  weather — extremely  cold  weather — 
darkness — ghosts — dreams  —  solitude  —  reptiles — domestic 
animals — wild  animals — insects — fire — water — strange  per- 
sons— ^robbers — death  and  disease/^ 

Now,  there  is  no  special  reason  why  many  of  these  fears 
might  not  inhabit  the  mind  of  any  child — not  necessarily 
through  "instinct"  at  all,  but  primarily  through  the  uncon- 
scious reactions  of  adults,  or  through  associations  with  other 
children.  And  let  us  not  forget  for  an  instant  that  one  of 
the  greatest  sources  of  fear  spreading  and  fear  contagion  is 
that  of  children  communicating  horrible  things  among  them- 
selves. A  dozen  innocent  and  fear-free  child  minds  may 
be  literally  poisoned  and  terrorized  by  the  stories  and  fears 
that  some  single  playmate  may  relate.  In  the  case  of  Jean, 
related  above,  ''bogey-man"  came  into  her  life  for  the  first 
time  through  a  group  of  three  neighbor  children  ranging 
in  age  from  seven  to  twelve.  According  to  Jean's  account 
of  it,  the  three  children  talked  to  her  at  great  length  about 
the  "bogey-man"  and  did  everything  they  could  to  scare 
her  out  of  her  wits.  The  children  of  course  I  am  not  blam- 
ing. I  merely  point  out  the  fact  and  the  source  of  pro- 
lific contagion.  As  far  as  blame  is  concerned,  there  can  be 
but  one  blame,  and  that  the  semi-civilization  of  the  world — 
all  resting  down  firmly  upon  the  foundations  of  an  educa- 
tion and  a  culture  so  superficial  that  they  are  positively 
dangerous  to  countenance  any  longer. 

But  the  immediate  fact  is  this:  The  child  is  troubled 
with  fears.  If  thunder  and  lightning  is  one  of  those  fears, 
then  I  would  relate  to  the  child  the  great  wonder  and  beauty 
of  it  all.  And  I  would  act  the  part — for  actions  speak  in 
terms  of  literal  loudness  with  children.  In  general,  every 
phenomenon  of  Nature  would  be  set  forth  as  a  thing  of 
beauty.     I  would  inject  that  unanimous  feeling  tone  into 

75  G.  Stanley  Hall:  A  Study  of  Fears,  Am.  Jn.  Psych.,  vol.  viii., 
No.  2,  1897. 


FEAE:  ITS  EELATION  TO  CHILDHOOD      149 

the  entire  thought  world  of  the  child.  As  to  cyclones  and 
other  disastrous  storms,  the  treatment  should  always  be  that 
of  prudence  and  fore  thought — and  never  fear  thought. 
There  is  a  vast  difference  between  actually  appreciating 
facts  as  they  are  in  a  cool,  clear  headed  manner — and  being 
perpetually  scared  and  haunted  and  stampeded  by  shadows. 

In  dealing  with  such  issues  as  wild  animals,  no  phase 
of  the  danger  side  should  ever  be  permitted  to  come  into 
contact  with  the  child's  mind.  I  would  erase  from  the 
stories  of  childhood,  and  from  all  child  literature,  whether 
in  books  or  in  magazines,  every  line  dealing  in  any  way 
whatsoever  with  wild  animals  from  the  danger  standpoint. 
I  would  banish  from  every  account,  verbal  or  otherwise,  such 
mental  monstrosities  as  wild  animals  chasing  people  or  in- 
juring them  or  killing  them  or  eating  them — and  such 
psychic  poison  as  ''hair  breadth  escapes"  from  wolves,  bears, 
tigers,  wild  cats — and  all  forbidden  garbage  of  that  kind. 
My  censorship  of  current  literature  w^ould  be  so  rigid  that 
no  newspaper  or  periodical  of  any  kind  would  be  permitted 
to  publish  a  single  line  that  might  implant  a  single  fear 
in  the  mind  of  a  single  child  in  the  land.  Any  deliberate 
violation  of  that  principle  should  be  held  a  more  serious 
crime  than  deliberate  treason  to  one's  country — for,  what 
rights  of  any  country  can  ever  be  so  sacred  as  the  rights  of 
the  mind  of  childhood,  unless  indeed  that  country's  rights 
were  specificly  the  ones  that  were  raised  in  defense  of  child- 
hood itself? 

Perhaps  in  all  literature  there  is  no  sounder  or  more 
classic  comment  on  the  general  manner  in  which  the  fear 
issue  should  be  handled  in  childhood  than  the  remarkable 
words  of  Rousseau  when  he  gives  voice  to  the  following: 
''When  in  the  farewell  scene  between  Hector  and  Andro- 
mache, the  little  Astyanax,  terrified  at  the  plume  floating 
from  a  helmet,  fails  to  recognize  his  father,  throws  himself, 
crying,  upon  his  nurse's  breast  and  wins  from  his  mother 
a  smil.e  bright  with  tears,  what  ought  to  be  done  to  soothe 
his  fear?  Precisely  what  Hector  does.  He  places  the 
helmet  on  the  ground  and  then  caresses  the  child.     At  a 


150  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

more  tranquil  moment  this  should  not  have  been  all.  They 
should  have  drawn  near  the  helmet,  played  with  its  plumes, 
and  caused  the  child  to  handle  them.  At  last  the  nurse 
should  have  lifted  the  helmet  and  laughingly  set  it  on  her 

own  head If  I  wish  to  familiarize  Emile  with  the 

noise  of  fire-arms,  I  first  burn  some  powder  in  a  pistol. 
....  By  degrees  I  accustom  him  to  the  noise  of  a  gun,  to 

bombs,  to  cannon-shots,  to  the  most  terrific  noises 

Commonly  children  fear  thunder  only  when  they  have  been 
taught  that  thunder  sometimes  kills  or  wounds.  When  rea- 
son begins  to  affright  them,  then  let  habit  reassure  them. 
By  a  slow  and  well  conducted  process  the  man  or  the  child 
is  rendered  fearless  of  everything  ".^^ 

I  would  that  the  above  reference,  especially  the  first 
part  of  it,  might  be  deeply  engraved  into  the  consciousness 
of  our  civilization. 

But  let  us  continue  with  Rousseau  in  more  of  his  words 
of  wisdom :  '  *  If  Emile  fall,  if  he  bruise  his  head,  if  his  nose 
bleed,  if  he  cut  his  finger,  I  should,  instead  of  bustling  about 
him  with  a  look  of  alarm,  remain  quiet  ....  all  my  anxiety 
will  only  serve  to  frighten  him  more,  and  to  increase  his 
sensitiveness.  After  all,  when  we  hurt  ourselves,  it  is  less 
the  shock  which  pains  us  than  the  fright.  I  will  spare  him 
at  least  this  pang.  If  he  sees  me  run  anxiously  to  comfort 
and  pity  him,  he  will  think  himself  seriously  hurt ;  but  if  he 
sees  me  keep  my  presence  of  mind,  he  will  soon  recover  his 
own,  and  will  think  the  pain  cured  when  he  no  longer  feels 
it.  At  his  age  we  learn  our  first  lessons  in  courage ;  and  by 
fearlessly  enduring  lighter  sufferings  we  gradually  learn  to 
bear  the  heavier  ones'\" 

How  sound  and  basic  such  words  are — and  how  shallow 
by  comparison  most  of  our  educational  pronouncements  of 
the  present  day!  With  his  usual  wisdom  Rousseau  lays 
down  this  governing  principle:  **The  earliest  education 
ought  then  to  be  purely  negative.  It  consists,  not  in  teach- 
ing truth  and  virtue,  but  in  shielding  the  heart  from  vice, 


■^6  J.  J.  Rousseau:  Emile,  page  26. 
77  Ibid.,  page  40. 


FEAR:    ITS  RELATION   TO   CHILDHOOD  151 

and  the  mind  from  error  "/^  It  is  from  the  miserable  bane 
of  fear  that  I  would  persistently  shield  the  heart  and  the 
mind  of  every  child. 

Then  very  closely  related  to  what  Rousseau  has  said  on 
fear  is  what  he  has  to  say  concerning  anger :  ' '  Violent  pas- 
sions make  a  striking  impression  on  the  child  who  notices 
them,  because  their  manifestations  are  w^ell-defined,  and 
forcibly  attract  his  attention.     Anger  especially  has  such 

stormy  indications  that  its  approach  is  unmistakable 

He  sees  an  inflamed  countenance,  flashing  eyes,  threatening 
gestures;  he  hears  unusually  excited  tones  of  voice.  .  .  .  . 
Say  to  the  child  calmly,  unaffectedly,  without  mystery :  *This 
poor  man  is  sick ;  he  has  a  high  fever'.  You  may  take  this 
occasion  to  give  him  an  idea  of  maladies  and  their  effects"/^ 

Rousseau's  reference  to  anger  is  a  masterful  one  in  this 
connection  for  two  reasons:  First,  it  warns  us  of  another 
manner  in  which  children  may  become  terrorized,  or  their 
nervous  organizations  deeply  stampeded;  and,  second,  it 
gives  us  a  most  capital  suggestion  by  saying  to  the  child, 
"This  poor  man  is  sick;  he  has  a  high  fever"!  The  sug- 
gestion constitutes  a  first  rate  basis  for  the  control  of  tem- 
per and  for  the  ideal  of  self-mastery  in  every  child. 

And  in  this  particular  connection,  another  very  grave 
source  of  fear  for  childhood  comes  to  my  mind.  I  refer 
to  that  fear  which  is  born  of  the  attitude  taken  on  by  those 
who  in  any  way  have  the  disciplining  of  the  child  in  charge 
— especially  when  it  comes  to  the  administration  of  corporal 
punishment.  Parents  are  the  chief  sinners  in  this  respect, 
though  teachers  are  not  wholly  clear  of  the  charge.  Re- 
gardless of  what  punishment  is  meted  out  to  a  child,  under 
no  circumstances,  must  fear  or  terror  be  one  of  the  con- 
tributing elements — never !  If  corporal  punishment  is  ever 
going  to  be  resorted  to,  then  it  must  be  handled  in  such  a 
way  that  bodily  pain  is  the  exclusive  ingredient.  Better  a 
thousand  times  over  that  the  child  go  without  punishment  of 
any  kind,  than  that  obedience  be  gained  at  the  awful  price 

■^^Ibid.,  page  57. 
79  Ibid.,  page  61. 


152  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

of  a  mind  shattered  and  dethroned  by  a  terrorizing  fear. 
If  trembling  cowardice  is  to  be  our  ultimate  product,  then 
better  by  far  that  the  hand  be  palsied  that  would  raise  a 
whip  over  the  head  of  any  child.  The  great  question  in 
punishment  is  not  what  kind  of  punishment,  but  rather: 
What  is  the  punishment  doing  to  the  mind  and  the  nervous 
organization  of  the  child  that  is  heing  punished? 

Now,  it  is  primarily  because  of  the  great  possibility  of 
fear's  entering  into  corporal  punishment,  that  it  is  a  most 
dangerous  weapon  in  the  hands  of,  say,  ninety-nine  persons 
out  of  every  one  hundred.  For  this  reason,  my  voice  has 
always  been  raised  against  it.  I  have  never  yet  recom- 
mended corporal  punishment  to  any  parent  or  to  any 
teacher.  The  disastrous  thing  about  corporal  punishment  is 
the  fear  accompaniment  of  it — the  approach  of  the  punish- 
ment— the  anticipation  on  the  part  of  the  child — ^the  grow- 
ing dread — the  panic-stricken  terror  with  every  advancing 
step  of  the  whip-wielder — the  angrj^  distorted,  threatening 
and  determined  countenance  of  the  latter — the  permament 
fear  effects  that  settle  down  into  the  mind  of  the  child  from 
one  whipping  to  another — the  cowardice  that  is  ultimately 
involved — the  timidity  that  becomes  inbred — the  sense  of 
self-mastery  that  is  crushed — the  sense  of  inner  confidence 
that  is  shattered — in  fact  the  wrecking  of  every  corner 
stone  of  the  mind :  It  is  because  of  the  possibility  of  this 
awful  price  that  I  always  utter  an  emphatic  no  against  cor- 
poral punishment.  If  corporal  punishment  really  were 
corporal  punishment,  and  that  only,  I  should  not  object  to 
it.  But  when  I  know  that  as  a  rule  corporal  punishment  is 
nothing  more  or  less  than  a  process  of  wrecking  the  mind  of 
the  child  then  I  say  to  the  world — halt!  Corporal  punish- 
ment is  usually  a  pure  lie — for  its  real  name  is  mental 
punishment — soul  torture  of  the  most  destructive  type. 

Similarly,  in  the  use  of  any  punishment,  fear  must  be 
eliminated.  If  the  child  is  afraid  of  being  alone  in  a  closet, 
then  there  must  be  none  of  that  kind  of  punishment  for  that 
particular  child.  Should  there  happen  to  be  any  child  who 
is  afraid  of  the  dark,  then  that  child  must  never  be  sent  into 


FEAE:    ITS  RELATION   TO  CHILDHOOD  153 

a  dark  room  for  punishment,  while  there  remains  a  single 
vestige  of  fear  of  the  dark.  And  the  reason  should  be  very- 
plain  to  all.  Our  aim  in  punishment  is  to  do  something  that 
shall  be  of  ultimate  benefit  to  the  child.  But  if  our  punish- 
ment ruins  the  child,  then  what  folly  there  is  in  that  pun- 
ishment. I  am  convinced  that  punishment  of  one  kind  or 
another — of  the  wrong  kind  and  spirit — constitutes  one  of 
the  most  dangerous  fear  fields  in  all  the  annals  of  child- 
hood. We  must  revise  and  refine  our  punishments  in  such 
a  way  that  the  last  possible  atom  of  fear  shall  be  removed 
from  every  one  of  them.  When  that  is  done,  then  our  dis- 
ciplining of  childhood  shall  be  right.  Until  that  is  done,  we 
must  submit  to  calling  our  civilization  barbarism. 

Again,  I  would  mention  something  else  that  needs  men- 
tioning in  the  worst  possible  way — the  conduct  of  well-mean- 
ing but  foolish  neighbors  and  strangers,  or  anyone  else, 
who  would  assume  to  be  *' smart '^  or  ''funny"  or  ''enter- 
taining" with  children  that  should  be  left  strictly  alone. 
Times  without  number  have  I  heard  some  smart  dunce  come 
about  the  premises  and  say  to  some  child,  timid  or  otherwise  : 
"Look  out — I'm  going  to  cut  your  ears  off" — or  some  other 
equally  ' '  clever ' '  piece  of  cheap  lingo.  Such  people  abound 
everywhere  in  life — everywhere  from  one's  own  home  to 
stores  and  streets  and  parks  and  railroad  coaches,  and  other 
public  places.  It  is  remarkable  how  many  "clever"  people 
are  to  be  found  on  trains,  who  consider  it  their  fundamental 
duty  to  "scare"  an  unoffending  childhood  with  any  one  of 
a  score  of  utterly  absurd  utterances,  all  calculated  at  the 
same  time  to  be  high  class  entertainment  for  the  rest  of 
the  passengers.  There  ought  to  be  a  fool  killer  on  every 
train  in  the  land,  and  another  one  in  every  community  in 
the  land,  for  the  express  purpose  of  effectually  muzzling 
every  ignoramus  who  doesn  't  know  any  more  than  to  pester 
childhood  in  the  manner  indicated.  The  first  dut.y  of  every 
person  is  perhaps — to  mind  his  own  business.  The  main 
function  of  a  stranger  is  to  leave  every  child  absolutely 
alone — because,  under  all  racial  psychology,  every  stranger 
is  an  enemy.    There  is  apt  to  be  in  the  mind  of  every  child 


154  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

a  certain  predisposition  to  timidity  or  fear  in  the  presence 
of  strangers — so  that  any  stranger  has  but  very  little  to  do 
when  he  assumes  to  take  liberties  of  any  kind  with  any  child. 
Let  every  stranger  keep  his  distance — and  his  tongue.  If 
any  advance  is  to  be  made  at  all,  let  that  advance  be  made 
by  the  child  itself — and  even  then,  let  every  stranger  keep 
his  mouth  shut  unless  he  has  some  better  contribution  to 
make  than  the  implanting  of  fear  and  falsehood  and  foolish 
farce.  All  strangers  should  take  especial  notice  of  this. 
Acquaintances  and  relatives  will  also  take  notice,  for,  in  the 
final  analysis  they  have  no  particular  license  to  carry  on 
with  anything  that  is  denied  strangers,  as  far  as  fear  cre- 
ating in  childhood  is  concerned. 

Now,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  before  us  more  specific- 
ly  some  of  the  fear  problems  of  the  child,  let  us  go  back 
once  more  to  the  study  of  Hall,  already  referred  to  in  the 
present  chapter.  I  shall  quote  some  typical  sentences  se- 
lected by  Dr.  Hall  from  the  letters  that  were  written  to  him 
by  different  persons  who  answered  his  questionnaire  letter. 
Different  persons  testified  as  follows : 

''Had  intense  fear  of  water  till  eleven;  when  bathed 
would  scream  with  fear,  and  was  almost  convulsed".  Here 
is  a  point  of  information  that  parents  might  well  bear  in 
mind.  If  any  child  has  such  a  fear  of  water,  then  most 
assuredly  there  should  be  no  tub  or  basin  of  water  for  that 
child  in  the  beginning.  The  sponge  bath  should  be  resorted 
to  until  such  time  as  the  child  can  be  made  to  see  and  feel 
for  itself  that  there  is  nothing  about  the  water  to  fear. 

"During  all  childhood,  nothing  frightened  me  like  wind ; 
to  subdue  me,  they  needed  only  to  say  the  word".  The  last 
part  of  this  testimony  is  conclusive  evidence  that  the  par- 
ents of  this  child  used  its  fear  of  the  wind  as  a  constant 
whip  over  its  head !  Does  anyone  mean  to  tell  me  that  that 
is  not  a  display  of  barbarism  ?  It  is  as  plain  as  the  sun  in 
heaven  that  this  child  *s  fear  of  the  wind  was  cultivated 
every  day  of  its  life — whereas  it  could  have  been  completely 
eliminated  merely  by  the  substitution  of  intelligence  for 
ignorance.    Undoubtedly,  also,  if  we  had  the  complete  story 


FEAE;    ITS  RELATION   TO  CHILDHOOD  155 

connected  with  the  case  of  this  child  we  would  have  before 
us  just  one  more  instance  where  "loving"  parents  uncon- 
sciously cultivate  fears  instead  of  killing  them.  May  heaven 
some  day  deliver  us  from  mere  "lovingness"  that  has  not 
within  it  the  leavening  spirit  of  an  enlightened  intelligence ! 

''At  three  had  great  terror  of  the  full  moon,  and  would 
always  run  and  yell  to  get  away  from  it".  Just  one  word: 
How  did  the  ''loving"  parents  of  this  child  handle  the 
situation  ? 

"I  was  always  terrified  at  the  noise  of  lighting  a  match". 
Can  we  not  see  here  such  a  thing's  being  held  so  lightly  by 
the  parents,  that  they  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  the 
matter — and  in  fact  even  permitted  older  children,  if  there 
were  any,  to  "play"  with  the  terrorized  child  in  that 
manner? 

' '  Must  always  sleep  with  a  light  in  her  room,  or  else  sees 
terrible  faces".  Can  anyone  doubt  for  a  minute  that  this 
child's  fear  is  a  manufactured  product?  I  can  now  see 
vividly  the  hundreds  of  things  that  happened  in  that  child's 
home  to  make  it  afraid  of  the  dark — and  not  one  single  thing 
being  done  to  checkmate  and  cure  that  fear !  I  know  only 
too  well  that  the  call  for  that  light  in  the  bedroom  is  not 
step  one  in  the  child's  fear  world — no — it  was  closer  to  step 
one  million. 

"Cannot  go  home  from  school  alone  after  she  has  had 
one  of  her  bad  dreams".  Here  is  a  field  of  which  most 
parents  are  totally  unconscious.  The  bad  dream  is  largely 
a  question  of  bad  food  and  bad  judgment  in  permitting 
children  to  eat  sweets  and  candies  at  all  hours  between 
meals — and  also  in  permitting  children  to  take  violent 
physical  exercise  immediately  after  meals.  Nothing  is  com- 
moner in  our  homes  than  for  children  to  be  permitted  to 
"eat"  a  heavy  meal  in  a  few  minutes  and  then  immediately 
to  go  back  to  school  on  the  "dead  run"  to  engage  there  in 
further  violent  activities.  Indeed  there  are — oh — so  many 
respects  in  which  parents,  when  weighed  in  the  balance  to- 
day— are  found  wanting.  Then,  too,  of  course,  the  bad 
dream  is  very  often  the  direct  result  of  a  mental  and  phy- 


156  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

sical  organization  already  completely  shattered  through  the 
deadly  effects  of  fear. 

''Was  cured  of  fear  of  thunder  by  being  shown  the 
beauty  of  lightning  at  the  window  by  his  father ' '.  Here  is 
a  good  constructive  suggestion — when  judiciously  applied. 

''After  reading  of  wolves  in  Russia  he  could  not  enter 
a  dark  room ' '.  Such  a  fact  as  this  is  one  of  the  reasons  why 
I  would  place  a  strict  ban  on  any  literature  holding  up 
before  children  the  danger  side  of  wild  animals.  It  is 
time  enough  to  learn  such  things  about  wild  animals  later 
on  in  life  when  such  knowledge  may  be  of  some  service, 
instead  of  loading  childhood  down  with  a  set  of  facts  that 
can  function  only  as  terrorizing  fear. 

"Four  children  cry  with  fear  if  they  see  false  teeth 
move'\  This  is  just  one  more  instance  illustrating  the  fact 
that  we  never  know  positively  in  advance  just  what  may  be 
a  fear  object  in  the  minds  of  certain  children.  Nowhere 
in  all  life  is  vigilance  so  golden  as  in  the  directing  of  child- 
hood and  youth. 

"Has  never  quite  recovered  from  the  painful  bashful- 
ness  of  childhood".  Bashfulness  is  another  manufactured 
product.  It  is  a  type  of  fear.  It  is  the  result  of  fear  acting 
in  combination  with  a  childhood  that  is  robbed  of  full  and 
free  opportunity  for  social  experience.  The  reader  is  espe- 
cially referred  to  the  chapter  on  "Introversion". 

' '  Children,  as  is  well  known,  fear  all  prevalent  diseases, 
and  often  have  long  spells  of  imagining,  now  one,  now  an- 
other group  of  symptoms".  This  great  fact  constitutes  just 
one  more  indictment  against  an  education  so  "socially" 
obsessed  that  what  is  happening  on  the  inside  of  the  human 
mind  in  the  meantime  is  completely  lost  sight  of.  One  of 
the  worst  of  all  indictments  against  our  civilization  today 
is  the  fear-panic  with  which  it  has  peopled  the  very  air  in 
the  case  of  every  disease  on  the  calendar.  In  another  volume 
I  hope  to  give  to  this  phase  of  the  case  the  treatment  that 
it  deserves. 

"Has  believed  in  ghosts  since  two,  and  always  shall". 
Where  did  this  person  get  this  belief  ?    What?    Why,  it  is 


FEAR.:    ITS   RELATION   TO   CHILDHOOD  157 

some  more  of  the  ''accumulated  culture  of  the  race" !  Any- 
one who  brings  a  ghost  story  within  sight  or  hearing  of  any 
child — should  be  strangled  on  the  spot. 

''The  greatest  fear  is  tearing  cloth".  This  is  still  one 
more  instance  in  which  we  cannot  foretell  what  any  child's 
fears  may  be. 

"Another  child  caught  terror  from  being  lost,  and  of 
woods  from  Babes  in  the  ^Yoods'\^^  Such  facts  convince 
me  more  and  more  that  much  of  our  accepted  child  litera- 
ture must  be  gone  over  in  such  a  way  as  to  pluck  out  com- 
pletely the  fear  element.  Undoubtedly  we  have  many  fables 
that  need  censoring. 

Hall's  conclusion  of  his  study  is  as  follows:  "The  domi- 
nant impression  left  by  such  a  study  is  that  of  the  degrading 

and  belittling  effects  of  excessive  fears The   fear 

state  is  but  a  great  psychic-chemical  poison  widely  diffused 
and  profoundly  affecting.  Fear  knows  no  check.  It  floods, 
it  dams  all  the  sluices  of  activity.  The  child  dreads  self- 
betrayal  of  fears,  and  hence  represses  ".^^  Every  parent 
should  take  especial  note  of  that  last  sentence — for  the 
very  w^orst  way  in  which  to  handle  any  fear  is  to  have  that 
fear  endure  in  silence.  The  child  must  be  led  to  express 
its  fears,  for  they  can  never  be  gotten  rid  of  silently. 

Another  source  of  childhood  fear,  as  well  as  a  manifes- 
tation thereof,  and  which  was  touched  upon  in  number  six 
of  the  above  quotations,  is  that  of  the  dream.  I  desire  to  elab- 
orate on  that  somewhat  here.  Due  to  various  states  of  mental 
and  physical  inharmony  many  a  child  is  the  victim  of 
intense  horrors  by  means  of  the  dream  state.  A  typical 
case  is  so  well  put  by  Dr.  Williams  that  I  am  quoting  there- 
from at  considerable  length:  "Every  teacher  of  young 
children  has  encountered  at  some  time  what  is  commonly 
known  as  the  *  nervous'  child,  with  whom  all  efforts  have 

availed  nothing The  cause  of  the  inefficiency  may 

be  the  outcome  of  some  long-forgotten  event  in  the  life 


80  G.  Stanley  Hall,  op.  cit.,  pages  166,  171,  175,  180,  184,  189,  202, 
205,  212,  216,  224,  230,  233  and  235  respectively  for  above  quotations. 

81  Ibid.,  page  238. 


158         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

of  the  child,  the  recital  of  a  terrifying  story.  The  child 
is  often  ashamed  of  her  fears,  is  afraid  of  being  laughed 
at,  and  so  hides  her  terrors  within  herself,  in  many  cases 
to  the  detriment  of  physical  and  mental  health.  The  effect 
of  emotions  like  fear,  has  now  been  studied  by  experiments 
in  animals,  by  which  it  has  been  shown  that  the  secretions 
of  the  glands  can  be  so  changed  as  to  cause  even  death  (see 
the  works  of  Palow  on  the  digestive  glands,  of  Cannon  on 

the  adrenal  gland,  and  of  Krile  on  the  thyroid  gland) 

A  girl  of  sixteen  was  referred  to  me  for  examination.  On 
account  of  great  nervousness  for  years  she  had  never  been 

regularly  to  school Inquiry  showed  that  she  would 

frequently  wake  in  the  night  very  much  afraid 

Further  inquiries  showed  that  a  servant  had  told  terrifying 
stories  to  her  sister  as  a  child ;  the  horrors  this  brought  ran 
through  a  family  of  three  children,  but  they  passed  away 
from  all  of  them  except  this  patient  ....  her  fears  were 
of  either  fires  or  burglars,  and  they  only  occurred  in  bed 

or  asleep Then  again,  in  the  case  of  a  boy  of  four 

years  the  formation  of  a  night  terror  was  nipped  in  the  bud. 
For  several  weeks  he  had  been  visiting  the  zoological 
gardens  every  afternoon.  For  a  long  time  all  went  well, 
until  one  evening  he  began  to  cry  in  bed  soon  after  he  was 

left  for  the  night He  said  that  there  were  lions  in 

the  house,  and  that  he  was  afraid  they  would  eat  him.  The 
source  of  the  idea  had  been  that  the  lions  had  roared  more 
loudly  than  usual  on  that  particular  afternoon.  I  soon 
convinced  the  boy  that  the  lions  had  to  remain  in  their 
cages  and  could  not  get  out,  so  that  there  was  no  occasion 
to  fear.  Of  course  it  was  first  necessary  to  give  him  the 
feeling  of  security  gained  by  embracing  me,  and  secondly 
to  begin  the  conversation  by  talking  about  something  else. 
In  this  way  the  state  of  terror  was  dismissed,  and  the  feel- 
ing of  protection  was  induced  before  we  returned  to  the 
subject  of  the  lions;  then  we  made  rather  a  joke  of  the 
funny  roaring  of  the  lions  before  we  had  finished,  and  he 
finally  lay  down  with  the  solemn  promise  to  go  to  sleep 
and  think,  as  I  proposed,  of  the  tram  cars  and  motors 


FEAR:  ITS  RELATION  TO  CHILDHOOD      159 

passing  outside  his  window It  was  all  a  very  simple 

substitution,  but  it  was  the  prevention  of  what  might 
have  become  a  serious  psychosis  if  injudiciously  handled. 
It  should  not  be  difficult  to  see  that  these  night  terrors 
are  the  product  of  a  suggestion  while  awake,  implicit  or 
explicit.     It   should   not   be   difficult    for   those   who   are 

forewarned  to  prevent  morbid  fears  of  this  type 

It  must  be  remembered  that  explicit  utterance  is  not 
essential  for  the  conveyance  of  ideas;  for  in  the  child  a 
vague  general  notion  is  quite  as  effective  for  producing 
emotion  as  a  clear-cut  concept.  Thus  in  Henry  James' 
novel,  'What  Masie  Knew',  the  whole  suggestion  conveyed 
by  the  governess  to  her  two  charges  was  implicit  in  her 
general  attitude,  for  until  the  end  there  was  not  one 
explicit  statement  of  fear.  Now,  the  explanation  of  this 
is  very  simple :  it  depends  upon  the  fact  that  gesture  pre- 
cedes speech  as  a  vehicle  of  thought.  The  infant  compre- 
hends the  varying  attitudes  and  vocal  tones  of  its  mother 
long  before  it  can  distinguish  words;  and  in  most  people 
this  channel  of  information  remains  an  important  mode 
by  which  they  are  influenced,  often  quite  unconsciously".®^ 

The  essential  fact  for  all  of  us  to  get  is  this,  namely: 
Fear  dreams  are  very  largely  man-made  affairs.  Their 
substance  as  a  rule  consists  of  fear  thoughts  of  one  kind  or 
another  that  have  either  been  implanted  in  the  mind  of 
the  child,  or  else  permitted  there,  during  waking  moments. 
Direct  fear,  secretiveness  or  worry;  or  a  combination  of 
them  all  will  be  found  to  be  the  parent  of  many  of  the 
bad  dreams  of  childhood.  Ghostly  terrors  of  some  kind, 
involving  the  elements  of  loneliness,  darkness,  baffling 
movements,  sounds  of  a  dismal  character,  wild  animal 
stories  setting  forth  hair-breadth  escapes,  excessive  se- 
cretiveness brought  about  by  socially  obstructed  channels 
of  expression,  fear  deposits  of  past  punishments  and  un- 
mingled  dread  of  impending  ones — in  fact  a  generally 
wrecked  nervous  and  mental  organization  due  to  obsessions 
of    fear,    grief,    worry,     alarm,    timidity,    despondency, 

82  T.  A.  Williams,  M.  D.    Proceedings  N.  E.  A.,  1914,  pages  836-40. 


160  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

suspicion,  and  other  like  shadows :  In  all  of  these  lies  the 
sum  and  the  substance,  the  warp  and  the  woof,  of  the 
bad,  terrifying  dreams  of  childhood — and  of  the  adult  world 
as  well. 

Nor  should  we  think  for  a  minute  that  fear  in  childhood 
remains  an  undifferentiated  product.  It  does  not.  It 
flowers  off  into  deep-seated,  permanent  and  chronic  forms. 
The  most  common  of  such  fear  forms  and  fear  products 
are  worry  and  grief,  pessimism  and  suspicion,  anxiety  and 
alarm,  dissatisfaction  and  hatred,  despondency  and  depres- 
sion, anger  and  irritability,  cowardice  and  moroseness. 
While  the  fear  itself  remains  ever  as  an  acute  thorn  in  the 
flesh,  its  chronic  products  hover  just  as  constantly  as  so 
many  shadows  in  the  mind,  though  the  victim  is  perhaps 
less  conscious  of  their  presence.  Many  of  these  chronic 
shadows  are  the  result  of  acute  fear  forms  arising  from 
social  contacts — ^very  often  in  school  life.  Generally,  the 
atmosphere  of  the  school  is  inhibiting  and  fear-forming. 
Many  a  child  fears  failure  in  school,  day  in,  day  out.  But 
often  the  fear  of  examination  is  still  worse.  Worry  in  such 
fields  soon  becomes  a  settled  state  of  mind.  Nervousness 
sets  in — and  as  far  as  mental  poise  and  mental  harmony 
are  concerned,  the  child  may  become  a  wreck — in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  one  hundred  per  cent  may  be  drawn  in  every 
examination  and  in  every  recitation  in  physiology}!  School 
fears  become  school  worries — and  between  :e  two  the 
pathway  to  mental  ruin  is  easily  paved.  The  bad  dreams 
of  childhood  can  often  be  at  least  partly  traced  to  those  evil 
school  conditions  which  suffer  it  to  be  possible  for  the  mind 
of  the  child  to  be  stricken  in  some  way  with  fear  of  some 
kind,  whether  it  is  fear  of  the  teacher,  fear  of  fellow  pupils, 
fear  of  ridicule,  fear  of  recitations,  fear  of  examinations, 
fear  of  failure,  or  fear  of  social  conditions  which  cannot 
be  met  as  other  children  meet  them — or  whether  any  such 
fear  is  a  mere  flowering  out  and  extension  of  fears  that 
the  child  brings  to  school  with  him  from  his  own  home 
and  social  environment. 

And  this  leads  me  to  the  question  of  social  tastes  and 


FEAE:    ITS  RELATION   TO   CHILDHOOD  161 

social  standards  as  a  provoking  source  of  fear  for  many  a 
child.  I  might  call  it  the  thought-cast  of  our  civilization. 
I  refer  to  the  ahominable  emphasis  that  our  civilization  has 
come  to  put  upon  decorations — such  things  as  empty  social 
strivings — the  insane  desire  to  imitate  others — ^the  emphasis 
placed  upon  being  in  style — the  copying  of  false  and 
arbitrary  standards  of  taste — the  yearning  and  straining 
for  dollars  and  dress.  The  social  sanction  that  we  have 
placed  upon  such  things  produces  an  immeasurable  strain 
psychically — not  only  in  the  adult  world,  but  just  as  truly 
in  the  child  world.  The  whole  trouble  comes  from  civil- 
ization's having  held  up  before  the  child  the  wrong  model 
to  copy.  The  child  sees  that  model — and  sees  it  vividly 
— just  as  vividly  as  the  grown  person  in  many  respects. 
That  same  model  becomes  a  fear  source  in  the  mind  of  many 
a  child — for  it  awakens  worry,  self-depreciation,  unrest, 
and  a  spirit  of  dissatisfaction  that  is  most  undesirable.  The 
child  in  rags  looks  upon  one  in  silks — and  is  sore  depressed. 
The  taproots  of  many  undesirable  mental  states  are  thereby 
sprouted.  The  remedy  is,  that  we  should  teach  broadcast 
in  our  schools  and  our  homes  the  folly  of  the  whole  thing — • 
the  folly  of  being  blind  to  the  intrinsic  worth  of  the  granite 
of  the  human  mind — the  stupidity  of  being  sightless  to 
the  eternal  realities  of  life  because  of  any  such  shadows 
as  the  artificial  and  arbitrary  decorations  which  today 
dominate  the  fabric  of  our  social  mind  from  one  end  of 
our  civilization  to  the  other.  Nothing  could  be  better  in 
this  direction  than  to  get  the  civilizations  of  the  world  to 
take  one  deep  and  permanent  look  into  the  minds  of  such 
giants  as  Socrates,  Plato,  Jesus,  Lincoln,  Tolstoy — and 
many  others.  Our  undying  determination  and  ideal  must 
be  to  change  most  radically  the  models  which  society  has 
been  compelling  children  to  copy  through  the  channels 
of  social  imitation.  Anything  which  ultimately  causes 
fear  in  childhood,  or  anything  related  to  fear,  such  as  worry 
and  self-depreciation,  must  be  driven  from  our  midst — to 
say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  it  is  the  duty  of  civilization 
to  produce  master  minds  that  can  stand  out  and  alone 
11 


162  THE  PURPOSE   OF  I:DUCATI0N 

with  some  measure  of  mental  individuality  about  them, 
rather  than  to  lay  down  the  pattern  of  a  sheep-fold,  in 
which  every  single  fool  goes  over  the  social  fences  like 
every  other  fool,  whether  it  be  in  the  tone  of  a  tie,  the  shape 
of  a  shoe,  or  the  hang  of  a  hat!  Give  us  men!  Give  us 
women !  And  not  weather  vanes — whose  one  consciousness 
and  one  law  of  gravitation  is  whatever  way  the  fickle  fans 
of  fashion  may  flutter!  Yes,  childhood  everywhere  must 
have  different  standards  of  thought  and  action  to  emulate ! 
We  will  get  those  standards  the  moment  that  our  insane 
civilization  arouses  from  its  drunken  stupidity  and  estab- 
lishes an  educational  system  whose  center  and  whose  cir- 
cumference is  the  human  mind. 

Let  us  bear  in  mind  the  awful  fact  that  our  education,  our 
civilization,  is  producing  diseased  minds.  That  is  the  great 
fact  which  confronts  us.  The  chief  instrument  in  that 
production  is  fear  of  one  kind  or  another,  combined  with 
its  chronic  offshoots — and  the  principal  field  in  that  entire 
process  is  the  plastic  mind  of  the  child.  Humanity  is 
teeming  with  its  diseased  minds  everywhere.  But  the  world 
pays  no  attention  to  such  a  condition  of  affairs,  as  a  rule, 
because  mental  abnormality  has  come  to  be  the  universal 
disease  of  the  planet.  But  far  more  alarming  still  is  the 
fact  that  society  is  completely  unconscious  of  the  great 
truth  that  mental  abnormality  of  some  kind  lies  at  the 
base  of  all  of  her  ills.  There  are  authorities,  however,  who 
have  made  careful  inquiry  into  the  present  prevailing  state 
of  the  human  mind,  and  who  are  thus  in  a  position  to  tell  us 
something  of  the  hidden  sides  of  the  typical  human  minds 
with  which  we  daily  mingle.  Dr.  Sidis  is  one  of  such 
authorities.  In  his  study  he  presents  a  large  number  of 
eases  in  which  the  victims  of  various  mental  and  physical 
ailments  recite  the  concrete  tragedies  befalling  themselves, 
resulting  from  fear  which  crept  into  their  minds  when 
they  were  children.  I  am  presenting  the  three  following 
eases  out  of  a  large  number  covered  by  Dr.  Sidis  *  study. 

Case  17 :  * '  From  my  earliest  recollections  I  was  an  un- 
usually brave  child,   and  proud  of  my  bravery.     Older 


FEAR:  ITS  RELATION  TO  CHILDHOOD      163 

brothers,  on  account  of  this,  tried  to  frighten  me  in  every 
manner  possible.  One  appeared  with  a  false  face  and 
frightened  me  so  that  I  have  since  been  afraid  of  everything 
else".'' 

Think  of  the  tragedy  of  such  a  case!  Think  of  the 
awful  ignorance  of  our  civilization  that  fear  becomes  a 
plaything  in  the  hands  of  the  various  associates  of  child- 
hood! We  label  our  poison  bottles  with  skull  and 
crossbones,  because  such  poison  produces  immediate  physical 
effects — but  the  great  psychic  poison  of  mind,  soul  and 
body — fear — that  poison,  civilization  toys  with ! 

Case  19 :  '  ^  I  am  a  married  woman  of  52.  All  my  life  I 
have  been  imprisoned  in  the  dungeon  keep  of  fear.  Fear 
paralyzes  me  in  every  effort.  If  I  could  overcome  my 
enemy  I  would  rejoice  for  evermore.  In  childhood  every- 
thing cowered  me.  I  was  bred  in  fear.  At  five  or  six  my 
mother  died,  and  I  feared  and  distrusted  a  God,  who  would 
so  intimidate  and  bereave  me.  I  heard  tales  of  burglars 
being  discovered  in  hiding  under  beds,  and  a  terrified 
child  retired  nightly  for  years.     I  was  in  agony  of  fear. 

My  fears  I  never  told Through  childhood  I  feared 

suicide.     It  was  a  world  of  escape  that  appealed  to  me, 

and  yet  appalled  me In  my  twenties  I  did  attempt 

suicide  several  times As  a  child  I  was  always  shy, 

fearful,  timid,  and  self-conscious  to  a  painful  degree.  Even 
as  a  grownup  woman  I  am  a  sufferer  from  the  same  cause 
.....  When  I  need  my  nerves  in  good  control  so  fre- 
quently, they  are  in  a  state  of  utter  collapse In  my 

childhood  hell-fire  was  preached.  Foreordination  and  an 
arbitrary  God  were  held  up  into  my  childish  comprehension. 
I  was  bred  in  fear,  and  self-destruction  resulted".®* 

The  tragedy  of  such  a  recital  is,  that  it  is  but  one  case 
out  of  millions.  It  is  merely  the  type  of  what  our  boasted 
"social"  education  and  civilization  are  doing.  The  mental 
torture  involved  in  such  existence  of  life-long  fear-poison- 

83  Boris  Sidis:  The  Causation  and  Treatment  of  Psychopathic 
Diseases,  page  315. 

84  Ibid.,  pages  320-2. 


164        THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

ing  is  in  itself  beyond  the  limits  of  human  endurance. 
The  tragedy  becomes  doubled  when  we  reflect  on  the 
drastic  and  unescapable  physical  effects  of  that  same  fear. 
It  is  indeed  no  wonder  that  mankind  is  saturated  with 
constipation  and  indigestion  and  insomnia.  Nor  is  it  any 
wonder  that  humanity  is  a  fit  subject  for  every  disease 
under  heaven  while  the  physical  organization  is  so  depre- 
ciated by  the  undermining  of  such  great  organic  funda- 
mentals as  nutrition,  elimination  and  rest. 

Case  20:  ''About  the  age  of  fourteen  I  began  to  be 
obsessed  with  sexual  fears.  Advice  was  given  me  again  and 
again  that  all  sexual  errors  make  boys  sick  and  finally  result 
in  a  lingering  death.  Such  advices  often  threw  me  into  a 
panic,  on  account  of  the  fears  I  already  had Occa- 
sionally I  was  seized  with  the  fear  that  my  brain  might  give 
away,  and  that  I  would  die  in  agonies,  a  miserable  dement. 
....  I  am  obsessed  by  fears.  Fears  pursue  me  as  long  as 
I  am  awake,  and  they  do  not  leave  me  alone  in  my  sleep 
and  dreams.  Fears  are  the  curse  of  my  life.  And  yet  I 
control  them — none  but  you  has  any  suspicion  of  them.  I 
go  about  my  work  in  a  seemingly  cheerful  and  happy  way. 
The  fears,  however,  are  the  bane  of  my  life,  and  torture  me 

by  their  continued  presence My  mental  states  grow 

on  fear,  take  their  origin  on  fear,  and  feed  on  fear 

Truly  the  Biblical  curse  applies  to  my  life :  '  The  Lord  will 
make  thy  plague  wonderful  ....  and  of  long  continuance 

and   sore   sickness And   every  sickness   and  every 

plague  which  is  not  written  in  the  book  of  this  law,  them 
will  the  Lord  bring  upon  thee  until  thou  art  destroyed. 
Thou  shalt  find  no  ease,  neither  shall  the  sole  of  thy  foot 
have  rest ;  but  the  Lord  shall  give  thee  a  trembling  heart, 
and  failing  of  eyes,  and  sorrow  of  mind.     And  ....  thou 

shalt   fear   day   and   night In   the   morning   thou 

shalt  say,  ''Would  God  it  were  even'M  and  at  even  thou  shalt 
say,  "Would  God  it  were  morning"!  for  the  fear  of  thine 

heart  wherewith  thou  shalt  fear '     I  lay  my  heart 

before  you.    I  permit  you  to  do  with  this  document  what- 
ever you  may  think  fit".^'' 
w  Ibid.,  pages  325-9. 


FEAR:  ITS  RELATION  TO  CHILDHOOD      165 

The  author  of  the  ease  just  quoted  is  an  eminent  physi- 
cian. He  reveals  to  the  world  the  inferno  of  fears  that 
have  infested  his  life.  And  how  truly  the  Biblical  curse 
that  he  quotes  applies  to  that  great  multitude  of  silent  suf- 
ferers that  throng  the  avenues  of  life  everywhere,  victims 
of  the  most  deadly  poison  known  to  all  creation!  Indeed 
no  curse  could  possibly  outdo  the  agonies  that  the  fear 
victims  of  this  w^orld  undergo.  "When  we  think  of  the  in- 
tensity and  persistence  and  universality  of  the  fear  plague — 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  countless  hosts  that  plod  their 
way,  paying  life  tribute  at  the  birth  of  every  breath  and 
the  horizon  of  every  hope — it  is  horrifying!  And  yet  the 
world  still  has  a  certain  section  of  its  population  so  blind 
to  the  play  of  cause  and  effect  in  life  here  and  everywhere 
that  they  would  professionalize  on  the  doctrine  of  an  arti- 
ficial punishment  at  some  later  day! 

In  closing  the  present  chapter,  we  have  now  reviewed 
briefly  the  relation  of  fear  to  childhood,  establishing  the 
fact  that  it  is  during  childhood  that  biological  integrity 
receives  its  first  great  death  blow.  The  question  now  is 
this :  How  long  is  the  process  to  continue  ?  The  answer  is 
simple :  Until  such  time  as  education  arouses  from  its  slum- 
bers, and  recognizes  the  things  that  are  fundamental  to 
human  perfection  and  human  happiness.  When  that  day 
of  awakening  dawns,  the  elimination  of  all  fear  from  the 
world  of  childhood  shall  constitute  point  one  in  education 
— not  only  in  our  schools,  but  in  our  homes,  and  in  the 
social  process  everywhere.  When  childhood  becomes  a 
stranger  to  fear,  then  shall  we  begin  the  building  of  a 
Universe  of  physical  and  mental  giants.  Then  shall  we 
build  real  men  and  real  women  endowed  with  the  gifts  that 
are  commensurate  with  their  real  innate  ability  to  com- 
mand. Then  shall  happiness  and  perfection  begin  to 
dominate  the  earth. 

In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  give  in  considerable  detail 
the  educational  views  of  Plato,  bringing  out  their  direct 
bearing  on  the  principle  of  biological  integrity. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL   INTEGRITY 

THE  VIEWS  OF  PLATO 

In  his  essay  on  "Spiritual  Laws"  Emerson  says  that, 
*^  There  are  not  in  the  world  at  any  one  time  more  than  a 
dozen  persons  who  read  and  understand  Plato — never 
enough  to  pay  for  a  single  edition  of  his  works '\^^  A  sim- 
ilar thought  is  expressed  by  Zielinski  when  he  utters  the 
following  words:  ''One  statesman  reads  Plato  and  gathers 
from  Republic  and  Laws  lessons  of  momentous  importance 
for  the  conduct  of  the  commonwealth.  Another  reads  Plato^ 
and  vows  that  he  has  carried  away  nothing  except  Eryxi- 
machus'  remedy  for  hiccups,  so  dramatically  introduced  in 
the  symposium"." 

In  a  previous  chapter  I  have  already  stated  that  in  my 
opinion  about  all  the  educational  world  has  ever  done  with 
Plato  is  to  chatter  his  name.  Education  has  carried  nothing 
away  from  Plato  for  the  tragic  reason  that  education  has 
carried  nothing  to  him.  Most  of  our  leaders  who  have  ever 
written  books  on  education  have  always  considered  it  neces- 
sary to  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  the  world — and  do  a  bit 
of  balancing,  as  it  were,  like  a  carrier  pigeon  in  mid  air, 
circling  around  to  get  its  bearings  before  plunging  into  its 
journey.  It  is  about  thus  that  our  educational  writers  have 
gone  back  to  the  beginning.  Formerly  I  never  knew  just 
why  they  went  back.  It  was  alv/ays  a  puzzle  to  me.  But 
now  I  know — they  went  back  for  the  sake  of  the  journey — 
for  the  sake  of  the  prestige  that  the  journey  would  add  to 
their  writings.     Their  chief  reason  has  been  to  repeat  the 

^6  The  italics  are  mine. 

s^  Lane  Cooper :  The  Greek  Genius  and  Its  Influence,  page  257,  in 
chapter  by  Zielinski. 

166 


THE    VIEWS    OF    PLATO  167 

name  of  Plato  a  time  or  two.  Invariably  their  scholarly 
contributions  from  Plato  have  been  about  as  follows — and 
note  carefully  the  profundity  of  them:  "As  Plato  has 
said" — ''Plato  points  out" — "Music  for  the  soul  and  gym- 
nastics for  the  body" — "Plato's  unfoldment" — "Plato 
opines" — "The  full  and  harmonious  development  of  all  the 
faculties ' ' — ' '  Plato  failed  to  see ' ' — ' '  Had  Plato  lived  in  our 
ow^n  day ' ' !  These  and  a  thousand  and  one  other  perfectly 
inane  atoms  of  nothingness  constitute  the  message  that 
either  the  intimate  friends  or  the  intimate  enemies  of  Plato 
would  give  us  from  that  great  master! 

To  me  it  is  astounding  that  any  such  a  state  of  affairs 
should  exist — in  the  field  of  education — the  very  field,  above 
all  others,  for  w^hich  Plato  wTote!  "Wliat  a  tribute  indeed 
the  above  words  of  Emerson  are- — when  we  consider  that 
they  are  true — and  when  we  realize  the  thousands  of  edu- 
cators that  are  daily  pawing  over  the  name  of  Plato !  We 
might  excuse  the  rank  and  file  of  the  world  for  neither 
reading  nor  understanding  Plato — but  educators — who  can 
ever  forgive  them? 

Now,  let  me  say  right  here,  before  going  further,  that  I 
have  7'ead  Plato — and  I  understand  him.  To  the  timid 
reader  (as  well  as  that  great  host  of  colorless  authors  and 
critics,  whose  chief  ingredient  is  a  nauseating  tact)  I  will 
say  that  this  confession  is  no  display  of  egotism  at  all.  Nor 
does  it  mean  that  Nature  has  classified  me  with  the  fortun- 
ate dozen  referred  to  by  Emerson.  It  means  neither  one  of 
those  things.  It  is  a  mere  statement  of  fact.  I  understand 
Plato  because  I  have — read  him.  I  have  studied  him. 
"Whenever,  therefore,  I  assume  to  quote  from  Plato  I  quote 
from  Plato — instead  of  quoting  from  somebody  else — who 
has  quoted  from  somebody  else — who  has  quoted  from  some- 
body else — who  has  quoted  from  somebody  else — and  so  on 
ad  infinitum — until  we  finally  get  down  to  the  last  fellow, 
who  never  saw  a  copy  of  Plato  in  his  life !  I  say  that  I  have 
actually  read  the  man  himself — and  I  repeat  that  not  in  any 
boasting  spirit  at  all — but  simply  to  serve  notice  on  the 
world  that  I  mean  business — that  I  regard  education  as 


168  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

entirely  too  sacred  a  piece  of  human  work  to  engage  in  any 
way  whatsoever  in  pretense,  or  to  play  in  any  way  the  part 
of  an  educational  knave.  The  only  reason  why  others  have 
not  understood  Plato  is,  that  they  have  not  read  him.  No 
reason  could  be  simpler  or  more  complete  than  that.  Edu- 
cators have  not  read  Plato.  The  chief  reason  why  they 
have  not  is,  that  they  have  never  been  able  to  take  the 
''social"  blinders  off  their  eyes  long  enough  to  take  one 
good  square  look  at  the  rights  and  prerequisites  of  that 
almost  extinct  animal  now  which  used  to  be  referred  to 
during  certain  geological  epochs  as  the  individual.  That  is 
the  reason  why  Plato  has  gone  begging  down  through  the 
ages  of  educational  speculation — ^because  educators  have 
been  either  ''socially"  obsessed — or  else  too  lazy  to  read — 
or  both.  Let  each  educator  classify  himself  as  we  proceed. 
Why — even  Davidson  fails  totally  in  the  presence  of 
Plato — the  reasons  for  which  are  somewhat  more  compli- 
cated. It  has  always  been  a  marvel  to  me,  for  example, 
since  I  read  Plato,  how  Davidson  ever  came  to  write  his 
"Aristotle  and  Ancient  Educational  Ideals."  That  is, 
why  did  he  select  Aristotle?  Did  he  first  read  Plato  and 
Aristotle — and  then  conclude  what  his  title  should  be  ?  That 
is,  did  Davidson  decide  that  Aristotle  was  superior  to 
Plato?  If  he  really  did,  then  no  man  was  ever  more  mis- 
taken than  Davidson — for  as  far  as  the  field  of  education 
is  concerned,  Aristotle  is  a  pigmy  alongside  of  Plato.  And 
yet  in  Davidson's  book  he  makes  thirty  quotations  from 
Aristotle — and  only  two  from  Plato ! 

But  this  is  not  all.  There  is  abundant  evidence  to  show 
at  every  turn  that  Davidson  went  very  far  astray  in  even 
his  casual  study  of  Plato.  For  example,  he  has  this  to  say 
in  speaking  of  the  Republic :  "  It  is  emphatically  the  prod- 
uct of  a  youthful  intellect,  carried  away  by  an  artistic 
ideal  ".^^  In  my  opinion,  nothing  could  be  more  amazing 
than  such  an  expression — for  positively  Davidson  nowhere 
ever  began  to  penetrate  the  tremendous  educational  philo- 
sophy of  Plato.  I  shall  prove  this  before  I  get  through. 
88 Davidson:  Aristotle  and  Ancient  Educational  Ideals,  page  149. 


THE    VIEWS    OF    PLATO  169 

But  still  further,  I  am  firmly  convinced  that  from  the 
very  start  of  Davidson's  study  he  had  strong  pre-percep- 
tions  in  the  matter.  I  believe  that  he  was  prejudiced  in 
favor  of  Aristotle  from  the  beginning,  for  here  is  what  he 
has  to  say  of  him:  ''It  is  pretty  definitely  settled  among 
men  competent  to  form  a  judgment,  that  Aristotle  was  the 
best  educated  man  that  ever  walked  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth  "."' 

That  fact  evidently  impressed  Davidson  very  much.  It 
does  not  impress  me  in  the  least.  I  do  not  care  whether 
Aristotle  was  the  best  educated  man  or  the  least  educated 
that  ever  walked  on  the  earth.  That  does  not  concern  me 
at  all.  I  am  studying  education — therefore,  the  only  thing 
that  I  care  about  is  the  soundness  of  his  educational 
philosophy.  Outside  of  that  philosophy  it  is  utterly  im- 
possible for  Aristotle  to  prejudice  me  in  his  behalf,  regard- 
less of  how  many  thousands  of  excess  and  irrelevant  facts 
he  might  have  carried  around  in  his  mind.  Simply  to  be 
acquainted  with  more  facts  than  any  other  person  in  the 
world  does  not  constitute  a  formidable  recommendation  in 
my  eyes — especially  without  first  inquiring  how  many  of 
those  ''facts"  are  true,  as  Josh  Billings  would  say.  The 
real  criterion  of  any  man's  education  is  not  extensiveness 
of  intellectuality  at  all — ^but  wisdom,  judgment  and  depth 
and  accuracy  and  intensity  of  perception  in  things  that  are 
fundamental  to  life.  Judged  on  this  basis,  I  can  only  say 
that  in  the  field  of  educational  philosophy,  Aristotle  is  in 
every  w^ay  distinctly  inferior  to  his  illustrious  master.  I 
feel  sure  that  if  Davidson  had  really  read  Plato,  instead  of 
letting  the  intellectuality  of  Aristotle  get  in  his  light,  he 
w^ould  have  given  to  the  world  a  far  different  story  than 
he  did. 

Aristotle's  contribution  to  the  science  of  education  con- 
sists of  about  seventeen  pages.^''  Furthermore,  practically 
every  word  that  he  says  on  education  is  taken  from  Plato 
— with  exception  of  the  fact  that  Plato's  great  central 

89  Ibid.,  page  154. 

80  Aristotle :  Politics,  trans.  B.  Jowett,  1905,  book  viii. 


170         THE  PUKPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

thought  escapes  him  entirely.  Aristotle  contributes  not  one 
single  new  thought  that  is  basic  in  nature.  Further  than 
this,  he  gives  Plato  credit  for  nothing — but  he  takes  him 
greatly  to  task  over  many  petty  things.®^  For  example,  in 
one  place,^^  he  criticizes  Plato  for  his  doctrine  of  checking 
the  loud  crying  and  screaming  of  children^^ — and  yet  he 
forgets  that  Plato  said  everything  else  on  that  page  with 
which  he  himself  agrees. 

In  order  to  illustrate  about  the  nature  of  Aristotle's  treat- 
ment and  comprehension  of  Plato's  Republic  and  Laws,  I 
quote  the  following :  * '  In  the  Republic  Socrates^*  has  defi- 
nitely settled  in  all  a  few  questions  only ;  such  as  the  com- 
munity of  women  and  children,  the  community  of  property, 

and  the  constitution  of  the  state The  remainder  of 

the  work  is  filled  up  with  digressions  foreign  to  the  main 
subject,  and  with  discussions  about  the  education  of  the 
guardians.  In  the  Laws,  there  is  hardly  anything  but 
laws".'" 

This  is  about  the  tenor  of  Aristotle's  disposition  of 
Plato's  Republic  and  Laws,  which  embody  the  profoundest 
treatment  of  education  ever  made  by  man.  Aristotle's 
own  contributions  to  education  are  negligible.  All  told  he 
devotes  about  three  pages  to  the  education  of  infants,®^ 
whereupon  he  says:  "We  have  made  these  remarks  in  a 
cursory  manner — ^they  are  enough  for  the  present  occasion ; 
but  hereafter  we  will  return  to  the  subject  ".^'^  But  he 
never  does!  He  leaves  education  righi;  there.  Most  as- 
suredly he  must  have  made  his  ''remarks"  on  education  in  a 
very  ''cursory  manner."  No  better  proof  of  this  fact 
could  be  demanded  than  the  following  expression :  "Now,  it 
is  clear  that  in  education,  habit  must  go  before  reason,  and 
the  body  before  the  mind".^® 

^1  Ibid.,  page  297,  beginning  with  paragraph  4. 

^2  Ibid.,  page  297,  beginning  with  paragraph  6. 

93  Plato:  Laws,  vii.,  792. 

»*  Merely  the  name  of  one  of  the  characters  in  the  Eepublic. 

95  Aristotle:  Op.  Cit.,  page  67. 

96  Aristotle:   Op.  Cit.,  pages  296-9. 

97  Ibid.,  page  298. 

98  Ibid.,  page  304. 


THE    VIEWS    OF    PLATO  171 

My  objection  to  this  last  statement  partly  is,  that  there 
is  no  analogy  between  the  two  propositions  which  Aristotle 
has  thus  laid  down.  In  the  first  proposition  he  is  right  up 
to  a  certain  point,  since  reason  is  a  delayed  product  of  the 
intellect.  But  in  the  second  proposition  he  is  wrong,  since 
feeling  is  present  in  the  mind  from  the  very  start — and 
feeling  must  always  come  first  in  the  makeup  and  founda- 
tions of  the  human  body.  Aristotle  might  just  as  well  have 
said  that  in  a  trolley  system  the  network  of  w^ires  is  more 
fundamental  than  the  mind  of  the  engineer  that  made  the 
dynamo  in  the  power  house.  To  be  sure,  every  last  atom  of 
physical  equipment  is  indispensable — and  yet  let  us  not 
become  confused  when  it  comes  to  the  question  as  to  which 
is  the  more  important,  the  mind  of  man  or  some  scrap  of 
iron.  Let  us  not  be  led  astray  by  Aristotle  when  he  says 
that  the  body  comes  before  the  mind.  Let  us  rather  em- 
brace the  truth  by  listening  to  Plato,  who,  completely  re- 
versing Aristotle,  says  that  the  mind  comes  before  the  body : 
''My  belief  is  not  that  a  good  body  will  by  its  own  excel- 
lence make  a  good  soul;  but  on  the  contrary,  that  a  good 
soul  will  by  its  excellence  render  the  body  as  perfect  as  it 
can  be".^^    Plato  is  right.     Aristotle  is  wrong. 

But  let  us  leave  the  critics  of  Plato,  and  go  directly  to 
the  man  himself.  Let  us  go  to  the  very  workshop  of  the 
master,  and  interpret  him  through  the  medium  of  his  Ee- 
public  and  his  Laws.  Therein  shall  we  find  recorded  his 
views  on  education — that  is,  if  we  dig  down  deep  and  hunt 
for  them. 

Now,  when  I  first  went  to  study  with  Plato,  it  was  with 
the  greatest  anxiety,  interest  and  curiosity.  I  had  already 
formulated  after  years  of  serious  thought  the  principle 
which  I  herein  set  forth  as  biological  integrity,  I  felt 
positive  in  my  own  mind  that  that  principle  must  be  our 
ultimate  purpose  of  education.  I  could  not  possibly  see 
why  all  other  purposes  of  education  must  not  be  spurious 
alongside  of  that  one  which  aims  at  building  pstjcliic  sta- 

89  Plato:  Eepublic,  page  99.  This  same  quotation  was  given  in 
chapter  8  under  reference  70. 


172  THE   PUKPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

Ulity  into  the  very  soul  of  the  individual.  But  having 
cast  my  eye  over  the  entire  field  of  education,  as  I  thought, 
I  detected  nowhere  even  the  shadow  of  an  educational  pur- 
pose that  bordered  on  biological  integrity — save  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Rousseau,  who,  it  seems  to  me,  as  I 
shall  point  out  later,  did  have  in  mind  an  educational  pur- 
pose that  involved  somewhat  the  integrity  of  the  individual, 
though  in  his  Emile  he  nowhere  makes  any  detailed  or  spe- 
cific reference  to  such  a  purpose.  As  a  matter  of  fact  Rous- 
seau's treatment  of  education  is  not  primarily  from  the 
standpoint  of  a  consciousness  of  purpose  at  all. 

And,  so  I  say,  I  went  to  Plato,  almost  with  fear  and 
trembling,  wondering  whether  I  stood  alone  in  my  silent 
advocacy  of  biological  integrity,  or  whether  after  all  there 
might  be  some  authority  somewhere  in  the  annals  of  the 
past  who  would  stand  with  me,  or  who  would  have  some- 
thing to  say  in  such  a  definite  manner  that  it  would  rein- 
force my  position.  It  is  with  that  attitude  of  mind  that  I 
went  to  Plato,  after  having  threaded  my  way  along  the  line 
of  the  centuries,  studying  one  by  one  this  author  and  that 
author,  beginning  at  the  present  day  and  finally  getting 
back  to  Aristotle,  Plato  and  Socrates  in  the  order  named. 

And  what  did  I  find  in  Plato  ?  I  found  this :  The  one 
thing  for  which  I  had  been  looking  in  education  for  twenty 
years — and  for  which  I  had  looked  in  vain  till  I  came  to 
Plato.  I  found  in  Plato  the  most  detailed  and  the  most 
fundamental  purpose  of  education  that  I  have  found  in  all 
literature.  And  what  is  that  purpose?  To  answer  that 
question  will  be  to  occupy  the  remaining  pages  of  the  pres- 
ent chapter.  Suffice  it  to  say  here,  however,  that  while 
Plato  nowhere  employs  the  term  biological  integrity,  or  any- 
thing like  it,  his  treatment  of  education  sets  forth  in  the 
most  unmistakable  manner  that  twenty-three  centuries  ago 
he  gave  to  the  world  essentially  the  same  principle  of  edu- 
cation for  which  I  am  pleading  today.  This  fact  will  stand 
out  more  and  more  as  we  proceed  with  our  analysis. 

Now,  the  fundamental  thing  for  which  Plato  stands  in 
his  education  is  harmony  within  the  human  mind.    He 


THE    VIEWS    OF    PLATO  173 

wants  the  various  faculties  of  the  mind  harmoniously  un- 
folded. That  is  Plato's  basic  thought  throughout.  His 
educational  consciousness  is  therefore  rivetted  squarely  on 
the  individual.  Nothing  can  shift  Plato's  attention  for  a 
minute  from  the  fact  that  the  individual  must  be  our  ulti- 
mate criterion  in  education.  But  Plato's  unfoldment  and 
harmony  are  not  for  themselves  alone.  They  are  for  the 
purpose  of  giving  to  the  individual  self-mastery  and  con- 
sequent happiness.  Plato's  great  thought  is,  that  while 
there  is  a  fight  going  on  within  the  human  mind  itself — 
when  the  human  mind  is  out  of  balance  with  respect  to 
itself — ^when  one  faculty  is  developed,  say,  ten  times  as 
much  as  it  should  be,  while  another  faculty  has  perhaps, 
only  one-fourth  of  what  its  development  ought  to  be — ^w^hen 
the  human  mind  is  so  out  of  plumb  that  there  is  constant 
internal  psychic  warring  instead  of  harmony — that  such 
conditions  do  not  represent  education.  His  plea  therefore 
is  for  harmonious  unfoldment.  Plato  saw  clearly  that  if  an 
individual  is  going  to  be  right,  that  state  of  being  must 
be  funded  precisely  within  the  mind  itself.  At  all  hazards 
the  mind  of  man  must  be  right — else  all  else  in  the  world 
will  be  wrong. 

But  what  was  it  that  Plato  had  in  his  consciousness 
when  he  made  his  plea  for  harmony  within  the  mind  ?  What 
was  it  that  he  wanted  to  guard  against?  What  was  his 
concrete  conception  of  harmonious  unfoldment  ?  According 
to  Plato,  of  what  does  mental  harmony  consist?  Was 
harmony  a  mere  word,  vague  and  void,  with  Plato — or,  did 
Plato  have  some  definite  conceptions  as  to  what  must 
obtain  in  the  way  of  harmony  within  the  human  mind, 
providing  our  individual  is  to  be  considered  educated? 

My  answer  is  this — ^listen :  The  overwhelming  burden  of 
Plato's  anah^sis  of  education  had  to  do  with  keeping  the 
human  mind  free  from  every  vestige  of  fear!  Strike  fear 
from  the  human  soul!  That  one  thought  is  the  cornerstone 
of  Plato!  What?  Yes,  I  repeat  it!  That  very  message 
has  lain  covered  up  for  twenty-three  centuries — for  the 
reason  given  by  Emerson  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter. 


174         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

In  Plato's  educational  philosophy,  it  is  the  undue  pres- 
ence of  fear,  above  everything  else,  that  makes  psychic  har- 
mony impossible.  With  fear  present,  there  can  be  no  har- 
monious unfoldment  of  the  faculties,  for  the  reason  that 
fear  in  itself  represents  an  abnormal  development  to  begin 
with,  to  say  nothing  of  its  usurping  the  rights  of  every  other 
faculty  by  robbing  them  of  their  spirit  and  their  substance. 
Plucking  out  every  atom  of  fear  from  the  human  soul,  Plato 
enshrines  courage  as  the  essential  and  indispensable  pre- 
requisite for  harmony  in  the  human  mind.  Both  the  Re- 
public and  the  Laws  are  teeming  with  the  thesis  of  courage 
in  the  human  soul.  Cowardice  and  fear  are  correspond- 
ingly condemned  without  qualification  of  any  kind  what- 
soever. I  am  in  a  position  to  say  this,  because  I  have  gone 
through  Plato  ^s  works  with  the  greatest  of  care.  In  that 
study  I  have  collected  here  and  there  a  large  number  of  his 
utterances  setting  forth  courage  as  one  of  the  foundation 
rocks  of  harmony  in  the  mind  of  man.  These  quotations 
I  am  going  to  present  to  the  world,  in  order  that  people  may 
judge  for  themslves  just  where  Plato  stood.  Such  quota- 
tions, however,  shall  necessarily  be  brief,  for  to  give  all  of 
Plato's  elaborations  on  courage,  cowardice  and  fear  would 
be  to  copy  practically  every  page  in  his  two  books. 

What  I  do  quote,  however,  shall  always  be  verbatim — 
and  always  accompanied  by  definite  page  references.  I 
shall  not  make  the  great  mistake  that  Davidson  made  in 
this  respect  when  he  wrote  his  **  Aristotle  and  Ancient  Edu- 
cational Ideals",  in  which  he  never  makes  a  page  reference 
of  any  kind,  and  in  excusing  himself  for  which  he  has  the 
following  to  say :  * '  It  would  have  been  easy  for  me  to  give 
my  book  a  learned  appearance,  by  checkering  its  pages  with 
references  to  ancient  authors  ....  but  this  seemed  to  me 
both  unnecessary  and  unprofitable  in  a  work  intended  for 
the  general  public ' '  !^^°  My  response  to  this  is,  that  while 
in  the  past  authors  have  done  little  more  in  the  line  of 
ancient  references  than  merely  to  ** checker"  their  pages 
therewith,  very  often  perhaps  for  exactly  the  sake  of  giving 

100  Davidson :  Aristotle  and  Ancient  Educational  Ideals,  preface  vi. 


THE    VIEWS    OF    PLATO  175 

to  their  books  ' '  a  learned  appearance ' ' — yet  the  mere  fact  of 
a  writer's  ''checkering  his  pages"  with  such  references  can- 
not in  itself  condemn  him.  Furthermore,  not  to  give  page 
references  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  decidedly  the  lazy 
way  of  doing  things.  Above  all,  it  is  an  incalculably 
greater  mistake  for  any  author,  who  instead  of  quoting  an 
authority  word  for  word — and  enclosing  those  words  every 
time  with  those  magical  quotation  marks — goes  to  work  and 
submits  his  own  paraphrased  interpretation  of  what  some 
writer  has  said.  Now,  Davidson  has  made  that  very  great 
mistake.  He  has  simply  gone  ahead  for  the  most  part 
without  quotations  of  any  kind,  making  his  own  comments 
and  drawing  his  own  conclusions.  Almost  invariably  David- 
son has  left  his  readers  completely  in  the  dark  as  far  as 
verbatim  and  original  source  material  is  concerned.  Person- 
ally, for  one,  I  want  to  see  for  myself  exactly  what  it  is  that 
some  writer  has  said,  and  also  to  have  it  pointed  out  to  me 
exactly  on  what  page  of  what  book  such  and  such  a  quota- 
tion is  to  be  found.  I  consider,  for  example,  that  it  would 
be  very  unfair  for  me  to  expect  the  world  to  accept  what  I 
have  already  said  in  the  present  chapter  in  such  an  off-hand 
and  commentary-like  manner,  unless  I  can  go  ahead  and 
show  by  Plato's  own  words  just  what  right  I  had  to  draw 
any  such  conclusions  about  his  doctrine  of  harmonious  un- 
foldment — and  I  don't  care  whether  I  am  writing  for  the 
specialist  in  education,  or  whether  I  am  writing,  in  the 
words  of  Davidson,  "for  the  general  public."  Consequently 
I  say  purely  in  self-defense  that  I  am  not  "checkering"  the 
pages  of  this  chapter,  or  any  other  chapter,  "with  references 
to  ancient  authors"  merely  for  the  sake  of  giving  my  book 
a  "learned  appearance",  but  for  the  express  purpose  of  dis- 
charging what  I  consider  to  be  my  most  evident  duty  to  the 
world — for  the  purpose  of  enabling  any  person  who  cares 
to  do  so,  to  locate  for  himself  the  exact  statements  that  I 
am  quoting  from  Plato.  Any  other  way  of  handling  such 
material  I  would  consider  unpardonably  loose  and  unscien- 
tific in  the  extreme.  Furthermore,  in  order  that  the  words 
of  Plato  may  stand  out  with  the  prominence  that  their  great 


176  THE   PURPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

merit  deserves,  each  one  of  his  quotations  shall  be  embodied 
as  a  distinct  and  separate  paragraph.  In  no  case  will  my 
own  personal  comment  be  included  in  the  same  paragraph 
in  which  a  quotation  occurs.  By  adhering  to  this  plan, 
what  Plato  actually  said  can  be  much  more  easily  followed. 

Speaking  of  the  harmonies,  Plato  admits  frankly  that  he 
does  not  know  fully  what  they  are,  as  we  shall  see  from 
the  following: 

**I  do  not  know  the  harmonies  myself.  Only  see  that 
you  leave  me  that  particular  harmony  which  will  suitably 
represent  the  tones  and  accents  of  a  brave  man  engaged  in 
a  feat  of  arms,  or  any  violent  operation,  who  if  he  fails 
of  success,  or  encounters  wounds  and  death,  or  falls  into 
any  other  calamity,  in  all  such  contingencies  with  unflinch- 
ing endurance  parries  the  blows  of  fortune.  Leave  me  also 
another  harmony,  expressive  of  the  feelings  of  one.  .  .  .  not 
behaving  arrogantly,  but  acting  in  all  these  circumstances 
with  soberness  and  moderation,  and  in  the  same  spirit 
acquiescing  in  every  result.  Leave  me  these  two  harmonies, 
the  one  violent,  the  other  tranquil,  such  as  shall  best  imi- 
tate the  tones  and  accents  of  men  in  adversity  and  pros- 
perity, in  a  temperate  and  a  courageous  mood".^^^ 

When  Plato  thus  admits  that  he  does  not  know  all  of 
the  harmonies,  he  is  simply  saying  that  he  does  not  under- 
stand fully  all  of  the  balance  of  the  human  mind.  He  ad- 
mits that  his  understanding  of  the  mind  is  not  complete. 
But  regardless  of  what  may  constitute  complete  harmony 
within  the  mind,  Plato  would  thus  unmistakably  lay  down 
that  state  of  harmony  which  calls  for  courage  and  temper- 
ance. He  is  sure  of  that  foundation.  He  wants  self-mas- 
tery. He  wants  to  be  sure  that  under  all  circumstances 
every  individuaFs  inner  state  of  harmony  be  such  that  he 
will  be  able  to  conduct  himself  with  the  tones  and  accents  of 
a  hrave  man.  Plato  wants  to  be  sure  that  there  is  never  a 
trembling  heart  within  our  individual.  This  great  fact  is 
still  more  clearly  brought  out  in  the  following  question : 

101  Plato:  Republic,  Davies  &  Vaughan  trans,,  1914,  Macmillan  & 
Co.,  93-4. 


THE   VIEWS   OF  PLATO  177 

*'So  of  the  mind,  is  it  not  the  bravest  and  the  wisest 
that  will  be  the  least  disturbed  hy  any  influence  from 
without  f'^'^'- 

Plato  thus  speaks  for  the  brave,  courageous  personality. 
He  would  have  him  not  subject  to  every  storm  or  cloud  or 
threat  from  without.  He  knew  further  that  the  only  guar- 
antee against  any  such  disturbance  from  without  is  a  mind 
solidly  secured  within.  Above  all  he  specificly  knew  that 
it  is  fear  in  the  mind  that  spells  the  heart  of  the  coward — 
who  is  the  most  disturhed  by  influence  from  without  of 
any  entity  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

*'To  proceed  then :  if  we  intend  our  citizens  to  be  brave, 
must  we  not  add  to  this  such  lessons  as  are  likely  to  preserve 
them  most  effectually  from  being  afraid  of  death?  Or,  do 
you  think  that  a  man  can  ever  become  brave  who  is  haunted 
by  fear  of  death  r'^^^ 

It  is  plain  that  Plato  would  leave  no  field  of  human  ex- 
perience untouched,  which  might  in  any  way  develop  the 
faculty  of  fear  in  mankind.  He  would  go  to  the  very  grave 
and  rob  it  of  all  its  terrors,  in  developing  his  man  of  cour- 
age. Indeed  he  would  go  into  whatever  world  there  may 
be  beyond  the  grave  and  set  the  mind  of  man  right  in  that 
unknown  field  also,  for  he  contiijues : 

"Well,  do  you  imagine  that  a  believer  in  Hades  and  its 
terrors  will  be  free  from  all  fear  of  death,  and  in  the  day 
of  battle  will  prefer  it  to  defeat  and  slavery?  ....  Then 
apparently  we  must  assume  control  over  those  who  under- 
take to  set  forth  these  fables Then  we  shall  expunge 

the  following  passage,  and  with  it  all  that  are  like  it : 
'I  would  e'en  be  villain,  and  drudge  on  the  lands  of 

a  master 
Under  a  portionless  wight,  whose  garner  was  scantily 

furnished. 
Sooner  than  reign  supreme  in  the  reahus  of  the  dead 
that  have  perished'.^"* 

^*^2  Ibid.,  page  70.     The  italics  are  mine. 

103  Ibid.,  page  75. 

104  Homer:   Odyssey,  xi.,  4S9. 

12 


178  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

....  SO  much  the  less  ought  they  to  be  recited  in  the  hear- 
ing of  boys  and  men,  whom  we  require  to  be  freemen,  fear- 
ing slavery  more  than  death  ".^°^ 

So  high  a  rating  does  Plato  thus  place  upon  courage 
as  a  fundamental  element  in  the  building  of  inner  mental 
harmony,  that  he  would  destroy  every  element  entering 
into  the  world's  accepted  ''culture",  which  might  in  any 
way  contaminate  with  fear  any  mind  in  the  making.  Plato 
would  expunge  from  our  time  and  from  our  literature  every 
single  thought  and  every  single  sentence  which  might  in 
any  way  tend  to  turn  the  mind  from  the  channels  of  courage 
to  the  channels  of  cowardice. 

' '  Then  we  must  likewise  cast  away  all  those  terrible  and 
alarming  names  ....  the  mention  of  which  makes  men 
shudder  to  the  last  degree  of  fear What  we  main- 
tain is,  that  a  good  man  will  not  look  upon  death  as  a 
dreadful  thing  for  another  good  man  to  undergo,  whose 
friend  he  also  is".^*^" 

With  unending  persistency,  Plato  keeps  ever  at  this 
theme :  Away  with  fear,  the  parent  of  cowardice. 

''Or,  if  they  do  imitate,  let  them  imitate  from  very 
childhood  whatever  is  proper  to  their  profession — ^brave, 

sober,  religious,  honorable  men Then  we  shall  not 

permit  those  in  whom  we  profess  to  take  an  interest  .... 
to  imitate  slaves  of  either  sex  ....  nor  yet  lad  men, 
it  would  seem,  such  as  cowards' \'^^'^ 

Plato  would  not  have  the  slave  imitated  because  the 
slave  is  a  coward — because,  as  was  inferred  in  the  last  sen- 
tence of  reference  105  above,  the  slave  fears  death  more 
than  he  does  slavery.  The  coward  slave  is  therefore  a  bad 
man.  He  is  the  essence  of  fear.  With  the  one  central 
thought  of  courage,  Plato  is  rightly  obsessed  at  all  times. 
He  would  rigidly  censor  anything  and  everything  that 
might  contribute  to  the  building  of  a  coward.  For  this 
reason  he  would  have  no  cowardly  models  of  any  kind  about 
for  children  to  imitate. 

'      105 Plato:  T?epiiblie,  pages  75-6. 

106  Ibid.,  page  77. 

107  Ibid.,  pages  88-9.     The  italics  are  mine. 


THE   VIEWS   OF   PLATO  179 

''And  the  presence  of  grace  and  rhythm  and  harmony 
is  allied  to  and  expressive  of  the  character  which  is  brave 

and  soberminded This  being  the  case  ought  we  not 

confine  ourselves  to  superintending  our  poets,  and  compel- 
ling them  to  impress  on  their  productions  the  likeness  of  a 
good  moral  character,  on  pain  of  not  composing  among  us  ? 
And  ought  we  not  to  superintend  our  artists?  ....  Shall 
we  in  like  manner  ever  become  truly  musical  ....  until 
we  know  the  essential  forms  of  temperance,  courage,  liber- 
ality and  munificence,  and  all  that  are  akin  to  these  T'^^^ 

With  a  keen  eye,  Plato  clearly  saw  that  there  can  be  no 
real  grace,  rhythm  or  harmony  where  the  soul  is  enmeshed 
with  cowardice  and  fear.  Every  essential  basis  for  poise 
and  appreciation  would  be  lacking.  Plato  would  have  our 
poets  and  our  artists  project  such  messages  as  would  help 
to  guarantee  individuals  that  are  * '  brave  and  soberminded ' ' 
— and  with  remarkable  insight  he  says  that  true  music 
must  rest  on  our  knowing  "the  essential  forms  of  temper- 
ance, courage,  liberality  and  munificence."  That  is  to  say, 
great  music  must  come  from  a  great  soul.  No  such  a  keen 
commentary  on  music  has  ever  been  made  by  any  other 
writer  in  the  world. 

"So  must  we  bring  our  men  while  still  young  into  the 

presence  of  objects  of  terror And  whoever  from 

time  to  time,  after  being  put  to  the  proof,  as  a  child,  as  a 
youth,  and  as  a  man,  comes  forth  uninjured  from  the  trial, 
must  be  appointed  a  ruler  and  a  guardian  of  the  city,  and 
must  receive  honors  in  life  and  in  death,  and  be  admitted  to 
the  highest  privileges,  in  the  way  of  funeral  rites,  and  other 
tributes  to  his  memory.  And  all  who  are  the  reverse  of  this 
character  must  be  rejected.  "^^^ 

From  the  above  quotation  alone  one  might  think  at  first 
examination  that  Plato  was  advocating  the  terrorizing  of 
children.  But  that  is  not  the  case  at  all,  as  the  reader  can 
fully  verify  for  himself  by  turning  over  to  reference  137 
in  the  present  chapter.    Plato  would  accustom  children  to 

108  Ibid.,  pages  96-7. 
losibid.,  page  112. 


180         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

objects  of  terror  by  the  most  imperceptible  degrees,  and  in 
the  same  judicious  manner  as  Rousseau,  as  quoted  in  refer- 
ence 76,  preceding  chapter.  Plato's  thought  in  the  above 
quotation  simply  is,  that  ultimately  we  must  pick  only  the 
very  bravest  for  our  rulers  and  guardians.  His  education 
would  be  designed  to  make  courageous  characters  of  all, 
but  since  by  virtue  of  Nature  alone  there  is  bound  to  be 
some  variation,  Plato  wants  to  be  sure  that  none  but  the 
most  courageous  shall  be  selected  as  models  of  imitation 
and  emulation  for  the  rest  of  the  population  of  the  country. 
Plato  is  therefore  eminently  sound  when  we  understand 
what  he  means.  He  is  simply  grading  people  in  the  trait 
of  courage.  He  is  emphatically  not  advocating  the  terror- 
izing of  children. 

''And  again  there  can  assuredly  be  no  great  difficulty 

in   discerning  the   quality   of  courage I   say  that 

courage  is  a  kind  of  safe  keeping — that  kind  of  safe  keep- 
ing which  through  education  teaches  what  things  are  to  be 

feared Pain  and  fear  and  desire  are  more  potent 

than  any  other  solvent  in  the  world.  This  power,  therefore, 
to  hold  fast  continually  to  the  right  and  lawful  opinion  con- 
cerning things  to  he  feared  and  things  not  to  he  feared,  I 
define  to  be  courage^ \^^^ 

"This  power  ....  to  hold  fast  continually" — think 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  man !  No  such  an  analysis  of  courage 
as  that  has  ever  been  made  since.  The  coward  cannot 
hold  fast  continually  or  even  for  a  second  to  what  is  right. 
Indeed  the  coward  must  even  apologize  for  being  right — 
for  he  trembles  at  the  very  presence  of  his  own  shadow. 
Right  or  wrong,  he  is  the  same  haunted  and  hunted  slave 
within  the  very  precincts  of  his  own  mind — and  the  world 
knows  it — and  takes  corresponding  chase.  Truly, ' '  courage 
is  a  kind  of  safe  keeping. ' '  That  sentence  alone  is  enough 
to  immortalize  Plato.  At  the  same  time,  in  this  same  quo- 
tation Plato  makes  it  plain  that  it  is  the  duty  and  function 
of  education  to  teach  to  the  individual ' '  what  things  are  to 
be  feared"  and  "what  things  are  not  to  be  feared."    It 

110  Ibid.,  page  130.    The  italics  are  mine. 


THE   VIEWS   OF  PLATO  181 

would  seem,  therefore,  that  there  really  are  some  things 
which  the  individual  should  fear.  Yes,  that  is  right — 
there  is  one  fear  which  Plato  would  never  abstract  from 
any  mind.  What  this  is  will  be  fully  explained  in  due  time 
in  the  present  chapter  under  the  comments  following  refer- 
ences 113,  114,  115  and  116.  Continuing  with  his  analysis, 
Plato  now  introduces  another  thought : 

"The  three  principles  in  the  soul  are  the  rational,  the 
irrational  and  spirit  (or  that  by  which  we  feel  indig- 
nant)'V^^ 

By  the  rational  Plato  means  about  the  same  as  we  when 
we  speak  of  reason.  By  the  irrational  he  means  the  im- 
pulses and  physical  appetites.  By  the  spirit  he  means  the 
power  of  willy  with  especial  reference  to  courage.  It  is 
complete  harmony  among  these  three  principles  that  Plato 
would  establish. 

*'We  must  bear  in  mind  then  that  each  of  us  also,  if  his 
inward  faculties  do  severally  their  proper  work,  will  in 
virtue  of  that,  be  a  just  man,  and  a  doer  of  his  proper 
work.  "^^2 

In  this  statement  we  have  before  us  the  fact  that  Plato 
does  not  contend  that  courage  alone  makes  the  completed 
individual.  While  he  does  insist  that  courage  is  the  basic 
element,  he  nevertheless  admits  that  other  principles  are 
required.  In  his  further  analysis  of  the  above  three  prin- 
ciples, he  inquires  with  the  following  very  penetrating 
judgment : 

"And  would  not  these  two  principles  (the  rational  and 
the  spirit,  or  courage)  be  the  best  qualified  to  guard  the 
entire  soul  and  body  against  enemies  from  without ;  the  one 
taking  counsel,  and  the  other  fighting  its  battles,  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  governing  power,  to  whose  designs  it  gives 
effect  by  its  bravery  ?  In  like  manner,  I  think  we  call  an 
individual  brave,  in  virtue  of  the  spirited  element  of  his 
nature,  when  this  part  of  him  holds  fast,  through  pain  and 


111  Ibid.,  page  144. 

112  Ibid.,  page  146. 


182  THE  PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

disease,  the  instructions  of  the  reason  as  to  what  is  to  be 
feared,  and  what  is  not  to  be  feared  ".^^^ 

Here  it  must  be  explained  what  Plato  means  by  the 
expression,  *'what  is  to  be  feared,  and  what  is  not  to  be 
feared."  For  this  explanation,  let  us  turn  to  the  words  of 
Plato  from  another  source : 

''Let  us  not  forget  that  there  are  two  qualities  that 
should  be  cultivated  in  the  soul — ^first,  the  greatest  fear- 
lessness ;  and  secondly  the  greatest  fear.  Both  are  parts  of 
reverence  ".^^* 

The  above  quotation  may  seem  contradictory  within 
itself,  but  it  is  not.  Direct  light  is  thrown  upon  this  when 
Plato  says  later  on : 

' '  There  are  two  fears,  the  fear  of  expected  evil,  and  the 
fear  of  being  tJiougJii  evil/'^^^ 

It  is  the  first  of  the  above  two  fears  that  Plato  would 
crush  utterly  from  the  mind  of  man.  It  is  the  second  fear 
that  he  would  leave  and  implant  in  every  mind.  This  fact 
is  clearly  shown  when  Plato  says  further : 

''We  ought  to  train  ourselves  so  as  to  be  afraid  to  say 
or  suffer  or  do  anything  that  is  base"."^ 

That  is  the  one  and  only  fear  that  Plato  would  have 
stationed  in  the  human  mind — abhorrence  of  doing  wrong. 
It  is  a  conception  which  constitutes  an  ethical  conduct  on 
the  highest  possible  plane.  But  it  means  even  more  than 
this,  for  Plato  wants  nothing  to  take  place  in  the  process  of 
mental  action  that  may  in  any  way  interfere  with  the 
courage  of  the  individual.  Plato  is  keen  enough  to  see  that 
if  a  person  fears  not  to  do  wrong — that  is,  if  a  person's 
mental  constitution  is  not  such  that  he  becomes  self-crucified 
if  he  ''says  or  suffers  or  does  anything  base,"  then  such  a 
person  cannot  possibly  represent  a  sound  condition  of  inner 
mental  harmony.  A  part  of  Plato's  harmony  is,  that  every 
person  shall  fear  to  do  wrong — not  at  all  through  cowardice 

113  Ibid.,  page  147. 

114  Plato:  Laws,  translation  by  B.  Jowett;  introduction,  page  29. 

115  Plato:  Laws,  pages  177-8.     The  italics  are  mine, 
lie  Plato:  Laws,  page  180. 


THE   VIEWS   OF  PLATO  183 

of  public  opinion,  but  because  at  the  bar  of  conscience  the 
wrong-doing  does  not  find  justification  in  the  eyes  of  the 
individual  himself.  Every  other  atom  of  fear  Plato  would 
pluck  out,  root  and  branch  from  the  human  soul. 

But  let  us  digress  here  just  a  moment  to  say  a  word 
further  about  Plato's  ethical  conception  of  goodness  as 
based  on  the  individual 's  inner  fear  ' '  to  say  or  suffer  or  do 
anything  that  is  base."  In  my  opinion  that  is  the  sound- 
est foundation  of  ethics  in  all  the  world — and  that  as  such, 
it  is  infinitely  more  basic  than  the  injunction  '  Ho  do  good. ' ' 
Rousseau  held  to  this  same  view.  While  he  has  never  made 
any  mention  of  Plato  in  this  connection,  yet  his  expressions 
bordering  along  this  particular  line  are  so  illuminating  and 
so  supplemental  of  what  Plato  himself  said  twenty-one 
centuries  before,  that  I  am  quoting  herewith  the  following 
paragraph  from  Rousseau : 

''The  only  moral  lesson  suited  to  childhood,  and  the 
most  important  to  every  age  is,  7iever  io  injure  any  one. 
Even  the  principle  of  doing  good,  if  not  subordinated  to 
this,  is  dangerous,  false  and  contradictory.  For,  who  does 
not  do  good?  Everybody  does,  even  a  wicked  man  who 
makes  one  happy  at  the  expense  of  making  a  hundred  mis- 
erable; and  thence  arise  all  our  calamities.  The  most  ex- 
alted virtues  are  negative:  they  are  the  hardest  to  attain, 
too,  because  they  are  unostentatious,  and  arise  above  even 
that  gratification  dear  to  the  human  heart — sending  another 
person  away  pleased  with  us.  If  there  be  a  man  who  never 
injures  one  of  his  fellow  creatures,  what  good  must  he 
achieve  for  them !  What  fearlessness,  what  vigor  of  mind 
he  requires  for  it ! '  '^^^ 

Thus  we  see  that  Rousseau  designates  as  '* fearlessness" 
the  very  thing  that  Plato  called  fear  of  doing  wrong — 
exactly  the  condition  that  Plato's  formula  was  calculated  to 
establish,  namely:  Greater  courage  on  the  part  of  the 
individual.  It  is  indeed  most  gratifying  thus  to  note  the 
unanimity  of  those  two  great  minds  on  the  question  im- 
mediately under  consideration. 

^1^  J.  J.  BoiTsseau:  Emile,  pages  73-4.    The  italics  are  mine. 


184  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

Let  us  now  go  back  to  Plato  once  more  and  continue  with 
his  discussion  of  harmony. 

*'The  just  man  will  not  allow  the  distinct  classes  in  his 
soul  to  interfere  with  each  other,  but  will  really  set  his 
house  in  order;  and  having  gained  the  mastery  over  him- 
self, will  regulate  his  own  character  as  to  be  on  good  terms 
with  himself,  and  to  set  those  three  principles  in  tune  to- 
gether, as  if  they  were  verily  three  chords  of  a  harmony, 
a  higher  and  a  lower  and  a  middle,  and  whatever  may  lie 
between  these;  and  ....  as  a  duly  harmonized  man,  he 
will  then  at  length  proceed  to  do  whatever  he  may  have  to 
do,  whether  it  involve  the  acquisition  of  property  or  atten- 
tion to  the  wants  of  his  body,  whether  it  be  a  state  affair 

or  a  business  transaction  of  his  own Strife  between 

the  three  principles,  confusion  and  bewilderment  of  the 
aforesaid  principles,  will,  in  our  opinion,  constitute  injus- 
tice and  licentiousness  and  cowardice  and  folly,  and  in  one 
word,  all  vice '7^^ 

The  three  principles  above  referred  to  are  the  ones  pre- 
viously discussed — the  rational,  the  irrational  and  the 
spirit — or,  reason,  physical  appetites  and  courage  (the 
reader  is  referred  to  reference  111  and  the  comment  fol- 
lowing it).  Plato's  wisdom  is  matchless.  He  would  *'not 
allow  the  distinct  classes  in  the  soul  to  interfere  with  each 
other ' ',  but  would  have  every  person  ' '  really  set  his  house 
in  order".  He  would  have  no  "strife"  in  the  mind.  But 
think  of  the  st?^ife  there  is  in  the  mind  when  fear  is  there! 
"What  interference!  How  very  much  indeed  is  such  a  house 
out  of  order!  A  mind  under  such  a  state  of  discord  and 
inharmony  Plato  refers  to  in  the  following  well-chosen 
words : 

''A  motley,  many-headed  monster,  the  form  of  a  lion  and 
the  form  of  a  man  ....  without  making  any  attempt  to 
habituate  or  reconcile  them  to  one  another,  but  leaving 
them  together  to  bite  and  struggle  and  devour  each 
other  "."^ 


lis  Plato:  Eepublic,  pages  149-50.     The  italics  are  mine. 
"9  Ibid.,  pages  329-30. 


THE  VIEWS   OF  PLATO  185 

It  is  profound  utterances  like  the  above,  and  like  tlie 
utterances  of  Plato  everywhere,  that  Davidson  has  desig- 
nated as  ''pre-eminently  the  product  of  a  youthful  mind, 
carried  away  by  artistic  ideals  ".^^^  Indeed,  Davidson  could 
not  have  made  a  greater  mistake  had  he  referred  to  such  a 
masterpiece  as  Bryant's  ''Thanatopsis"  in  the  same  terms 
that  he  applied  to  Plato.  But  the  best  way  to  refute  David- 
son's erroneous  estimate  of  Plato  is  to  let  Plato  continue 
to  speak  for  himself : 

''Again,  are  not  luxury  and  effeminacy  censured  because 
they  relax  and  unnerve  this  same  creature,  by  begetting 
cowardice  in  him?"^^^ 

Plato  perceives  very  clearly  that  "luxury  and  effem- 
inacy" only  tend  to  make  the  disordered  elements  of  a 
disordered  mind  "bite  and  struggle  and  devour  each  other" 
all  the  more — hy  hegetting  cowardice  in  Mm,  He  would 
therefore  eliminate  "luxury  and  effeminacy"  as  basic  evils 
because  they  are  destructive  in  the  process  of  building 
courage.  He  also  makes  further  inquiry  concerning 
harmony : 

"Now,  in  this  variety  of  circumstances,  is  a  man's  state 
one  of  unanimity  ?  Or,  is  he  at  feud  and  war  with  himself 
in  his  actions  ? '  '^^^ 

How  true  and  penetrating  those  words  are !  They  get 
into  the  inside  of  the  human  mind  and  depict  for  us  the 
psychic  anarchy  that  obtains  wherever  fear  has  been  the 
spiritual  furnisher  of  our  thought  world,  invariably  setting 
up  for  one  such  demons  as  doubt,  indecision,  tvorry,  anxiety, 
self -consciousness  and  self-condemnation.  Under  such  cir- 
cumstances the  individual  is  always  "at  feud  and  war  with 
himself  in  his  actions"  instead  of  having  his  thoughts  and 
his  actions  co-ordinate  in  a  state  of  peace  and  harmony. 

"We  ought  ever  to  habituate  the  soul  to  turn  with  all 
speed  to  the  task  of  healing  and  righting  the  fallen  and  dis- 


120  See  reference  88  and  comments  connected  therewith  in  present 
chapter. 

121  Plato:  Republic,  page  331. 

122  Ibid.,  page  347. 


186  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

eased  part,  thus  putting  a  stop  to  lamentation  ....  which 
is  irrational,  and  idle  and  the  friend  of  cowardice" ^^^ 

^'Lamentation" — does  not  that  one  word  epitomize  the 
inner  state  of  the  mind  that  has  been  fear-fed  ?  Above  all, 
let  us  understand  that  this  lamentation  is  inward  debate  and 
soliloquy.  It  is  not  something  that  is  spoken  outwardly  to 
the  neighbors.  It  is  an  inner  psychic  agitation  and  unrest 
that  are  eating  out  the  very  vitals  of  the  individual 's  power. 
The  situation  is  this :  Mental  power  demands  mental  har- 
mony— and  mental  harmony  demands  undivided  unanimity 
in  the  field  of  mental  action.  What  is  spoken  and  what  is 
felt  must  be  absolutely  parallel.  There  must  be  no  insin- 
cerity, no  pretending — and  no  desire  for  such  things.  Peace 
must  1)6  in  the  mind — and  not  ' '  feud  and  war. ' '  The  first 
duty  therefore  is  ''to  habituate  the  soul"  to  heal  its  diseased 
sections — that  is,  get  rid  of  any  condition  ''which  is  irra- 
tional and  idle  and  the  friend  of  cowardice."  That  first 
great  task,  Plato  would  have  us  understand  consists  of 
sending  fear  into  exile.  Without  rest  of  any  kind,  Plato 
pursues  this  thought  everywhere,  and  in  such  a  range  of 
phraseology  that  one  must  admire  the  man  for  the  tremend- 
ous perception  that  he  invested  in  his  problem.  From  every 
possible  angle  he  peers  deeply  into  the  action  of  the  mind 
that  is  not  harmonized.  In  the  two  following  questions, 
for  example,  he  gives  us  another  view  of  cowardice : 

"So  that  a  mean  and  cowardly  character  can  have  no 
part,  as  it  seems,  in  true  philosophy  ?  Can  the  man  whose 
mind  is  well  regulated  and  free  from  covetousness,  mean- 
ness, pretentiousness  and  cowardice,  be  hard  to  deal  with 
or  unjust?"''' 

Nowhere  does  Plato  associate  cowardice  with  anything 
but  the  most  undesirable  and  unfortunate  traits  operating 
in  a  discordant  mind.  His  analysis  too  of  the  accompani- 
ments of  cowardice  is  always  the  soundest.  He  even  points 
out  the  following  traits  as  being  foreign  to  the  harmonious 
mind: 


123  Ibid.,  page  349.    The  Holies  are  mine. 
12*  Ibid.,  page  200. 


THE   VIEWS    OF   PLATO  187 

''Well  then  I  alluded  to  that  class  of  idle  and  extrava- 
gant men,  in  which  the  bravest  lead  and  the  more  cowardly 
follow.  We  compared  them  if  you  will  recollect,  to  sting- 
ing and  stingless  drones,  respectively  ".^^^ 

It  is  in  those  most  apt  terms  that  Plato  denounces  the 
''idle  and  extravagant."  To  him,  both  sets  are  "drones." 
Shortly  afterwards  he  quotes  from  the  Oracle  given  to  Croesus : 

"  'By  the  pebbly  bed  of  the  Hermus, 
Flies  he,  and  halts  no  more,  nor  shuns  the  reproach 
of  a  coward' '\^^^ 

To  Plato,  that  represents  the  lowest  depths  of  cowardice 

nor  shuns  the  reproach  of  a  coward!    Flies  he — how 

truly  that  represents  the  trembling  heart  of  the  helpless 
coward  in  the  very  face  of  what  he  knows  to  be  right! 
And  halts  no  more — was  there  ever  a  fear  victim  in  any 
field  that  ever  ran  by  any  other  formula?  Never!  The 
coward  always  shows  his  heels— if  no  other  way,  then 
by  his  lack  of  positive  self-assertion,  and  by  his  halting 
hesitancy. 

And  thus  it  is,  from  the  beginning  of  Plato's  Republic 
to  the  end  of  it,  the  one  message  that  he  is  trying  to  lay 
down  is  the  sacred  fundamental  right  of  every  individual 
to  psychic  soundness — and  furthermore  he  makes  it  clear 
that  courage  must  be  made  the  keystone  of  every  human 
mind— and  still  clearer  that  fear  is  the  one  great  beast  that 
stands  in  the  way.  In  other  words,  in  my  plea  for  biological 
integrity  I  claim  that  I  have  the  complete  sanction  of  Plato 
in  every  word  of  his  Republic. 

But  when  we  turn  from  Plato's  Republic  to  his  Laws  we 
find  the  same  unanimous  story— an  eternal  driving  away 
at  the  great  fact  overlooked  by  all  the  ages,  namely:  The 
getting  of  the  human  mind  right  within  itself  and  with 
reference  to  itself  as  the  lasic  principle  of  all  education. 
Let  us  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  greatest  master  mind  that  ever 
wrote  in  education  as  he  speaks  the  following  words  to  us : 

125  Ibid.,  page  297. 

126  Ibid.,  page  300.     Italics  mine. 


188  THE   PUEPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

"There  is  a  victory  and  a  defeat — the  first  and  best  of 
victories,  the  lowest  and  worst  of  defeats— which  each  man 
gains  or  sustains  at  the  hands,  not  of  another,  hut  of  him- 
self; this  shows  that  there  is  a  war  against  ourselves  going 

on  within  every  individual  of  us Inasmuch  as  every 

individual  is  either  his  own  superior  or  his  own  inferior, 
shall  we  say  that  there  is  the  same  principle  in  the  house, 
the  village,  and  the  state ?"''' 

The  greatest  of  all  victories,  therefore,  is  that  state  of 
psychic  stability  in  which  each  individual  is  his  own  self- 
master — and  ''the  lowest  and  worst  of  all  defeats"  is  that 
mental  state  within  in  which  psychic  war  debases  or  de- 
stroys us.  Each  individual's  greatest  friend  or  worst 
enemy  is  therefore  the  state  of  his  own  mind. 

''And,  in  like  manner,  no  one  can  be  a  true  statesman, 
whether  he  aims  at  the  happiness  of  the  individual  or  the 
state,  who  looks  only,  or  first  of  all,  to  external  warfare; 
nor  will  he  ever  be  a  sound  legislator  who  orders  peace  for 
the  sake  of  war,  and  not  war  for  the  sake  of  peace.  ...  Of 
all  wars,  the  one  which  men  call  civil  war  is  the  worst '  '.^"^ 

Who  can  doubt  that  proposition  for  a  minute  ?  In  fact, 
the  only  real  war  is  the  civil  war.  Indeed  every  states- 
man on  earth  might  well  listen  to  Plato  when  he  says  that 
external  warfare  is  a  relatively  insignificant  thing  along- 
side of  internal  warfare.  It  is  in  the  human  mind  where 
each  individual's  civil  war  is  raging — due  to  that  discord 
which  is  the  result  of  a  set  of  faculties  which  are  anything 
but  harmoniously  unfolded  and  developed — and  chief 
among  which  discord  is  fear,  that  thief  which  has  stolen 
away  the  basic  chords  and  the  dominant  tones  of  harmony 
from  our  innermost  mental  estates.  Yes — let  both  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  State  understand  that  all  real  destruction 
and  danger  always  proceeds  from  internal  unsoundness. 

But  if  there  be  any  who  think  that  in  speaking  of  cour- 
age as  the  one  great  desideratum,  and  as  the  basis  of  mental 
harmony,  Plato  had  any  specific  thought  of  the  soldier  or 

127  Plato :  Laws^  translation  by  B.  Jowett,  page  157.    Italics  mine. 
128 Plato:  Laws,  page  159  and  page  160. 


THE   VIEWS   OF  PLATO  189 

the  warrior  in  mind,  then  such  persons  are  very  much  mis- 
taken. In  order  to  prove  this  in  the  most  unmistakable 
terms,  I  am  going  to  quote  first  a  sentence  which  was  quoted 
by  Plato  from  the  words  of  Tyrt^us,  an  Athenian  by  birth, 
but  a  Spartan  by  adoption:  "I  sing  not,  I  care  not  about 
any  man,  even  if  he  were  the  richest  of  men,  and  possessed 
of  every  good,  unless  he  be  the  bravest  in  war".^-^  Plato 
then  comments  on  this  quotation  as  follows : 

''And  we  have  a  poet  also  whom  we  summon  as  a  wit- 
ness, Theognis,  citizen  of  Megara  in  Sicily,  who  says,  *  Cyr- 
nus,  he  who  is  faithful  in  a  civil  broil  is  worth  his  weight  in 
gold  and  silver,'  and  such  a  one  is  far  better  as  we  affirm, 
than  the  other,  in  a  more  difficult  kind  of  war,  much  in 
the  same  degree  as  justice  and  temperance  and  wisdom, 
when  united  with  courage,  are  better  than  courage  alone. 
....  In  the  kind  of  war  of  which  Tyrtaeus  speaks,  many  a 
mercenary  soldier  will  take  his  stand  and  be  ready  to  die 
at  his  post,  and  yet  they  are  generally,  and  almost  without 
exception,  insolent,  unjust,  violent,  and  the  most  senseless 
of  human  beings  ....  and  yet  in  place  and  dignity,  that 
virtue  may  be  truly  said  to  be  only  fourth  rate".^^° 

Nothing  could  be  plainer  or  more  convincing  than  that. 
Plato  in  his  treatment  of  education  is  not  speaking  about 
courage  for  the  warrior — ^but  courage  for  every  human  per- 
sonality, regardless  of  his  walk  or  profession  in  life.  This 
fact  is  unshakable.  The  spirit  of  it  impregnates  every  word 
that  Plato  ever  wrote.  Plato  was  not  speaking  about 
soldiers — he  was  speaking  about  Jiumanity.  He  was  cham- 
pioning primarily — not  a  war  courage,  but  a  peace  courage. 
At  this  time  the  reader  is  also  informed  that  in  the  follow- 
ing chapter  under  the  comments  following  quotations  from 
Emerson's  essay  on  Heroism,  will  be  found  some  detailed 
expressions  that  will  help  to  illumine  this  phase  of  our 
subject  still  further.  In  the  meantime,  let  us  continue  with 
Plato : 

"We  must  begin  as  before,  and  discuss  the  habit  of 


129  Ibid.,  page  160.     This  is  a  quotation  from  Tyrtaeus. 
ISO  Ibid.,  page  161. 


190  THE  PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

courage,  and  then  we  will  go  through  the  other  forms  of 
virtue".^'' 

This  is  but  one  more  evidence  that  Plato  places  courage 
first  in  his  analysis  of  harmonized  faculties.  He  knows 
that  with  courage  absent,  no  mental  harmony  is  at  all  pos- 
sible.    Then  Plato  inquires  further : 

* '  But  how  ought  we  to  define  courage — merely  as  a  com- 
bat against  fears  and  pains,  or  also  against  desires  and 
pleasures,  and  against  flatteries  ?  "^^^ 

Plato's  reply  is,  that  courage  must  also  include  the  lat- 
ter fields.  The  mind  must  be  such  that  it  has  a  strong 
psychic  anchorage  against  inward  feelings  as  well  as  against 
all  external  influences.  The  harmony,  in  other  words,  must 
be  complete.     Otherwise — 

' '  One-half  of  their  souls  will  be  slave,  the  other  free. '  '^^^ 

This  sentence  would  remind  one  of  a  similar  utterance 
by  Lincoln  during  slavery — and  indeed  of  the  recent  war 
statement  concerning  the  impossibility  of  the  world 's  longer 
enduring  half  democracy  and  half  autocracy.  What  Plato 
said,  however,  was  vastly  more  fundamental,  since  it  was 
aimed  directly  at  the  soul  of  the  individual.  It  is  also  an 
alarming  fact  that  what  Plato  said  in  the  specific  utterance 
represents  exactly  where  humanity  stands  today,  and  has 
ever  stood — directed  by  warring  souls,  at  least  one-half  of 
which  is  slave. 

^'And  we  agreed  that  they  are  good  men  who  are  able 
to  rule  themselves,  and  bad  men  who  are  not".^^* 

That  is,  the  good  man  is  able  to  rule  himself  in  the 
presence  of  every  internal  or  external  influence.  The  bad 
man  is  not  able  to  rule  himself  for  he  is  in  a  state  of  inner 
war  with  himself — and  he  suffers  defeat  at  his  own  hands. 
Plato  is  speaking  for  self-mastery  in  the  sense  of  self-poise 
and  self -naturalness.  With  Plato,  the  individual  must  be 
sincere — 


131  Ibid.,  page  163. 

132  Ibid.,  page  164. 

133  Ibid.,  page  166. 

134  Ibid.,  page  174. 


THE   VIEWS   OF   PLATO  l9l 

* '  His  virtue  being  such  that  he  never  fell  into  any  great 
unseemliness' \^^^ 

That  one  sentence  well  represents  Plato 's  remarkable  in- 
sight when  it  comes  to  analyzing  personality  and  mental 
harmony  in  terms  of  poise.  No  great  unseemliness — in  the 
sound  soul,  there  will  be  none  of  that.  The  individual, 
when  he  is  right,  will  be  so  sound  that  there  will  be  in  his 
makeup  no  trace  of  pretense  or  iyisincerity — no  mind  think- 
ing of  one  thing  while  the  tongue  is  trying  to  say  another. 
Let  us  remember  Plato's  exact  statement  as  given  above: 
His  virtue  being  such  that  he  never  fell  into  any  great 
unseemliness. 

"When  a  manly  soul  is  in  trouble,  and  when  a  cowardly 
soul  is  in  like  case,  are  they  likely  to  behave  the  same? 
....  You  can  speak  of  the  melodies  or  figures  of  the  brave 
and  the  coward,  praising  the  one  and  censuring  the 
other".''' 

And  here  let  it  be  borne  carefully  in  mind,  that  in  speak- 
ing about  "a  manly  soul  being  in  trouble,  and  a  cow^ardly 
soul  in  like  case",  Plato  involves  every  issue  of  life. 
"Trouble"  refers  to  nothing  specific  or  exclusive.  It  in- 
cludes every  life  task  and  problem,  whether  we  be  on  the 
defensive  or  the  aggressive.  Above  all,  it  does  not  mean 
some  special  calamity  that  may  befall  one.  It  refers  to  the 
field  of  all  our  labors — all  our  duties — every  work  to  which 
we  might  set  hand,  in  which  the  shadows  of  fear  might  over- 
take us.  Whatever  the  task,  Plato  wants  us  to  be  cour- 
ageous— not  cowardly.  He  w^ould  get  rid  of  the  trembling 
mind  that  is  haunted  by  fear.  He  would  begin  that  process 
of  fear  elimination  and  harmony  building  in  earliest  child- 
hood, for  he  makes  the  following  very  clear  pronouncement: 

"The  affection  both  of  the  Corybantes  and  of  their  chil- 
dren is  an  emotion  of  fear ;  and  fear  springs  out  of  an  evil 

habit   of  the   soul Every   soul   which  from  youth 

upward  has  been  subject  to  fear,  will  be  rendered  more  tim- 
orous ;  this  is  the  way  to  form  the  habit  of  cowardice  rather 

^25  1131(3. J  page  179.     The  italics  are  mine. 
136  Ibid.,  page  184. 


192  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

than  courage And  on  the  other  hand,  the  habit  of 

overcoming  from  youth  upwards,  the  fears  and  terrors 
which  beset  us,  may  be  said  to  be  the  exercise  of  courage  ".^^^ 

The  above  statement  also  serves  to  throw  light  upon 
reference  109  in  the  present  chapter,  in  which  Plato  speaks 
of  bringing  children  ''into  the  presence  of  objects  of  ter- 
ror." By  suhjecting  children  to  fear,  Plato  means  terror- 
izing them  with  fear  and  making  them  victims  of  fear — 
the  very  kind  of  a  procedure  that  Plato  does  not  believe  in. 
Plato's  doctrine  toward  fear  is  this:  the  habit  of  over- 
coming from  youth  upwards  the  fears  and  terrors  which 
heset  us.  His  treatment  of  fear  stands  out  as  one  of  the 
plainest  things  in  all  literature.  It  would  be  even  more  so, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  in  Plato's  day  slavery  was 
accepted  as  a  universal  and  unquestioned  social  condi- 
tion.^^^  To  Plato  every  slave  was  a  coward  though  he  was 
by  no  means  speaking  primarily  or  even  of  slaves  at  all 
when  he  enunciated  his  educational  doctrines.  Plato,  as 
I  have  said  many  times  before,  was  speaking  for  an  educa- 
tion for  all  humanity — and  not  for  any  one  particular  sec- 
tion thereof.  Plato's  educational  program  is  fundamen- 
tally a  weeding  out  of  cowardice  from  the  human  soul. 
Nor  would  he  allow  any  ''natural  selection"  to  rule  in  this 
field  for  a  minute.  Every  mind,  through  sound  education, 
would  have  to  embrace  its  birthright :  Freedom  from  fear. 
Every  mind  would  have  to  be  washed  clear  and  kept  clear 
of  every  trace  of  fear — for  fear  is  a  double  slavery — slavery 
to  self  and  slavery  to  the  world.  Plato  would  have  every 
free-born  man  an  unflinching  epitome  of  courage  in  his  own 
eyes,  and  in  the  eyes  of  others — and,  to  accomplish  which, 
Plato  knew  very  well  that  the  entire  fear  question  had  to 
be  properly  handled  from  earliest  infancy.  Plato  has  this 
partly  in  mind  when  he  makes  the  following  very  pointed 
statement : 

**No  trace  of  slavery  ought  to  mix  with  the  studies  of 
the  free-born  man".^^^ 

137  Ibid.,  page  309. 

138  See  reference  1,  chapter  1,  and  comments  immediately  in  touch 
therewith. 

139 Plato:  Republic,  page  264. 


THE   VIEWS   OF  PLATO  193 

It  is  thus  Plato's  distinct  message  ringing  down  across 
the  centuries  that  the  fear  victim  is  his  own  slave  driver, 
and  that  anything  savoring  of  slavery  is  bad,  owing  to  the 
fact  that  it  undermines  the  integrity  of  the  individual  by 
destroying  for  him  his  own  self-respect.  Furthermore,  Plato 
warns  the  world  that  the  entire  question  of  the  harmonized 
faculties  of  which  he  speaks  is  of  the  greatest  importance, 
for  he  says : 

"This  question  involves  not  the  mere  turning  of  a  shell, 
but  the  turning  of  a  souV\^^^ 

The  harmony  of  the  human  mind  is  fundamental — and 
not  mere  coin  flipping.  The  harmonious  unfoldment  of  the 
faculties,  Plato  tells  us,  is  the  very  bedrock  upon  which  we 
must  place  our  educational  structure.  Unless  we  make  the 
harmony  of  the  mind  the  very  foundation,  then  anything 
else  that  we  may  do,  however  careful,  or  however  refined,  is 
but  the  idlest  folly  and  the  hollowest  vanity. 

And  now  that  we  have  completed,  for  the  most  part,  our 
educational  quotations  from  Republic  and  Laws,  what  is 
there  in  the  contention  of  thoroughly  uninformed  critics 
that  Plato  was  an  idle  dreamer — that  by  his  unfoldment 
doctrine  he  would  simply  wander  about  in  an  isolated  man- 
ner within  the  precincts  of  his  own  mind,  wholly  withdrawn 
from  the  outer  world  of  human  affairs?  Wliat  is  there  in 
that  charge?  Never  has  there  been  in  all  history  a  more 
infamous  falsehood  and  libel — or  a  more  purely  unadulter- 
ated piece  of  ignorance — than  that  most  notorious  charge. 
I  would  defy  anyone  to  point  to  a  single  line  in  Plato  argu- 
ing for,  or  even  intimating  one's  withdrawal  from  the  world. 
There  is  simply  no  such  a  spirit  to  be  found  in  his  scheme 
of  education  at  all.  How  such  a  contention  ever  started  is 
beyond  me.  It  is  very  likely,  however,  that  some  person  who 
never  even  read  Plato,  or  who  was  utterly  incompetent  to 
read  him,  started  the  fable  sometime  in  the  past — and  the 
fable  has  been  going  ever  since.  A  prejudice  was  thus 
established.  Preperceptions  of  the  most  erroneous  type  took 
possession  of  the  world  concerning  Plato — and  the  momen- 

i^^rbiti     page  243.     The  italics  are  mine. 
13  ^ 


194  THE   PUEPOSE    OF  EDUCATION 

turn  of  that  fabulous  falsehood  has  been  increasing  with 
every  century,  apparently.  Today  it  has  become  popular, 
therefore,  either  to  decry  Plato  entirely,  or  else  to  praise 
him  blankly  in  the  highest  terms,  or  else  to  dismiss  him  in 
some  other  way  with  a  mere  wave  of  the  hand.  How  amaz- 
ing that  our  scholars  are  devoid  of  ability  and  attitude  to 
make  their  researches  independent  of  the  fables  and  super- 
stitions and  traditions  of  the  day  ! 

The  reader  will  here  recall  that  I  have  already  spoken  in 
this  respect  of  the  work  of  Davidson  (see  reference  88  and 
the  comments  immediately  preceding  and  following  that 
reference,  present  chapter).  No  one  has  fallen  down  more 
lamentably  than  Davidson  in  his  treatment  of  Plato.  Among 
other  things  he  has  this  to  say:  *'It  (Plato's  theory)  in- 
volves that  Oriental  ascetic  view  of  life  which  makes  men 
turn  away  from  the  sensible  world,  and  seek  their  end  and 
happiness  in  a  colorless  world  of  thought  ".^^^  And  yet  in 
the  face  of  such  an  assertion,  Davidson  fails  to  quote  a  single 
line  from  Plato  in  substantiation  of  his  contention!  One 
must  feel  convinced,  therefore,  that  Davidson  was  arguing, 
not  from  fact,  but  wholly  from  preperceptions. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  this :  All  of  Plato's  education 
has  to  do  with  conduct.  There  is  nothing  abstract  in  any 
of  his  principles.  He  simply  recognizes  that  the  human 
mind  must  be  right  within  itself — a  thought  which  scares 
education — a  thought  so  astoundingly  foreign  to  the  world 
of  modern  education,  that  Plato  is  at  once  pronounced  a 
"dreamer''  the  moment  that  he  gives  voice  to  it!  That 
charge  is  in  itself  the  most  damaging  condemnation  of 
Plato's  critics  that  it  is  possible  to  conceive.  It  is  a  tragic 
testimony  to  the  fact  that  education  is  going  on  today  with- 
out paying  any  regard  whatever  as  to  what  is  going  on 
within  the  human  mind!  Nor  shall  anyone  even  inquire 
concerning  what  kind  of  an  inner  mental  world  is  being 
built  up  within  the  individual — or,  if  he  does  inquire — then 
— fair  warning — such  a  person  is  an  '^Oriental  ascetic^'! 

But  let  us  listen  to  what  Plato  himself  says  on  this  very 
"1  Davidson :  Aristotle  and  Ancient  Educational  Ideals,  page  136. 


THE    VIEWS    OF   PLATO  195 

question,  by  repeating  a  quotation  which  has  already  been 
given  under  reference  27  in  chapter  four : 

"Then  as  soon  as  they  are  fifty  years  old  ....  and 
have  won  distinction  in  every  branch,  whether  of  action  or 
of  science  ....  and  though  they  are  to  spend  most  of 
their  time  in  philosophical  pursuits,  yet,  each  when  his  turn 
comes  is  to  devote  himself  to  the  hard  duties  of  public  life, 
and  hold  office  for  their  country 's  sake '  '."^ 

That  is,  et;ei^  after  the  age  of  fifty,  each  individual  is 
to  hold  himself  ever  ready  for  the  hard  duties  of  puhlio 
life.  I  emphasize  that  this  is  after  the  age  of  fifty.  But 
he  fore  the  age  of  fift}^,  each  individual  was  to  have  ivon 
distinction  in  every  hranch,  whether  of  action  or  of  science. 
Where  does  the  ''Oriental  asceticism"  come  in?  Where 
is  there  any  room  there  for  *  *  a  colorless  world  of  thought ' '  ? 

There  is  none!  Nor  is  even  a  shadow  of  such  an  in- 
ference to  be  found  from  the  first  page  of  the  Republic 
to  the  last  page  of  the  Laws!  And  yet,  in  spite  of  all 
that,  Davidson  would  condemn  Plato  as  an  "Oriental 
ascetic"  wandering  about  "in  a  colorless  world  of 
thought"!  But  a  more  astounding  thing  is  this,  namely: 
He  would  eulogize  Aristotle  for  saying  something  w^hich 
Plato  had  previously  said  in  a  better  way.  Note  care- 
fully the  following  words  of  praise  which  Davidson  has 
for  Aristotle:  "When  their  active  duties  cease,  they  are 
able  to   devote  themselves   to   Speculative   Philosophy  or 

Theocratics They    spend    their    days    in    cultured 

leisure,  and  the  contemplation  of  divine  things In 

this  way  Aristotle  settles  the  vexed  question  with  regard  to 
the  compatibility  and  relative  value  of  the  practical  and 
contemplative  life '  '.^^^ 

But  what  is  there  in  such  a  doctrine  that  Plato  had 
not  already  laid  down  ?  Has  not  Plato  made  it  plain  that 
even  after  the  age  of  fifty  each  individual  shall  hold 
himself  ever  ready  for  the  hard  duties  of  puhlic  life — while 
up   to    that    time    each    person   w^as   to    "have   won    dis- 

1^2  Plato :  Eepnblic,  page  268.     The  italics  are  mine. 

1^3  Davidson:  Aristotle  and  Ancient  Educational  Ideals,  page  201. 


196  THE   PUEPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

tinction  in  every  branch,  whether  of  action  or  of  science"? 
Consequently,  if  there  is  anyone  who  has  settled  "the 
vexed  question  with  regard  to  the  compatibility  and  rela- 
tive value  of  the  practical  and  contemplative  life,"  why 
isn't  it  Plato,  instead  of  Aristotle? 

Now,  my  specific  criticism  is  this:  It  almost  seems 
that  down  through  the  ages,  right  to  the  very  threshold 
of  the  present  day,  there  has  been  constant  injustice  meted 
out  to  Plato — ^the  grossest  form  of  which  is  that  which 
would  praise  Aristotle  at  Plato's  expense.  Indeed  it  is 
by  no  means  clear  to  me  that  even  Aristotle  himself  has 
always  dealt  with  Plato  on  that  high  ethical  plane  that 
one  would  hope  to  expect.  At  any  rate,  the  critics  of 
Plato  have  missed  their  mark  by  a  very  wide  margin — and 
for  a  very  good  reason:  Most  of  them  have  never  read 
him  at  all.  Many,  for  example,  have  taken  a  childishly 
gleeful  delight  in  calling  Plato  a  ^'dialectician^' — as  if  that 
were  some  awful  thing!  But  here  is  Plato's  own  view 
on  that  question: 

''According  as  a  man  can  survey  a  subject  as  a 
whole,  he  is  or  he  is  not  a  dialectician".^^* 

What  an  awful  tragedy  it  thus  is  to  be  a  dialectician! 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  our  modern  critics  shy  away  so 
stormingly  from  a  thing  which  is  so  foreign  and  so 
strange  to  them?     I  think  not. 

It  of  course  matters  not  that  Plato  has  spoken  plainly 
and  fully  at  all  times,  recorded  himself  with  detailed  care 
— for  an  education  which  spells  wisdom,  temperance,  cour- 
age and  justice — ^not  in  terms  of  dreaming  and  asceticism 
— ^but  in  terms  of  conduct — that,  I  say,  matters  not  to 
critics  who  are  devoid  of  powers  of  perception.  Nor 
does  it  matter  in  the  least  that  Plato  has  spoken  in  the 
following  clear-cut  language: 

"We  are  speaking  of  education  in  virtue  from  youth 
upwards,  which  makes  a  man  eagerly  pursue  the  ideal 
perfection  of  citizenship That  other  sort  of  ed- 
ucation which  aims  at  the  acquisition  of  wealth  or  bodily 

"4  Plato :  Eepublic,  page  265. 


THE   VIEWS   OF  PLATO  197 

strength,  or  mere  cleverness  apart  from  intelligence  and 
justice,  is  mean  and  illiberal,  and  is  not  worth,  to  be 
called  education  at  all"/^^ 

It  is  thus  that  Plato  argues  for  the  ideal  perfection 
of  citizenship  everywhere.  Does  such  a  commitment  as 
that  look  like  ''Oriental  asceticism" — or  like  the  seeking 
of  an  isolated  ''happiness  in  a  colorless  world  of  thought?" 
I  presume  that  if  Plato  had  laid  down  an  educational 
philosophy  which  in  effect  argued  foft*  the  making  of 
billionaires  and  professional  athletes  and  clever  com- 
mercial rascals,  instead  of  coming  out  pointedly  and 
specificly  for  the  ideal  perfection  of  citizenship,  he 
would  then  be  in  line  for  the  approval  and  approbation 
of  modern  educators!  As  it  is,  he  stands  condemned  as 
an  idle  dreamer!  The  awful  irony  of  fate!  But  the 
ironic  awfulness  of  ignorance! 

Now,  I  want  to  say  once  more  that  Plato  is  the  sound- 
est mind  that  has  ever  written  in  the  field  of  education. 
His  doctrine  concerning  the  unfoldment  of  the  faculties, 
or  the  development  of  self-harmony  within  the  human 
mind,  is  the  most  fundamental  commentary  ever  made  by 
man  on  the  purpose  of  education.  His  further  analysis 
that  the  corner  stone  of  that  unfoldment  and  that  harmony 
must  he  the  development  of  courage,  is  again  one  of  the 
profoundest  pieces  of  wisdom  that  has  ever  proceeded 
from  any  human  being.  Plato  spoke  as  a  very  god  when  he 
would  first  of  all  strike  out  the  demon  of  fear  from  the 
mind  of  man  in  the  process  of  education.  He  knew  that 
with  fear  in  the  mind,  there  could  be  no  psychic  harmony. 
With  fear  present  he  saw  that  the  right  of  every  normal 
function  and  faculty  of  the  mind  was  bodily  usurped — 
and  that  accordingly  any  education  in  the  real  sense  of 
the  word  was  checkmated.  Plato  spoke  for  a  self-mastery 
in  the  makeup  of  personality — and  he  saw  with  the  power 
and  vision  of  a  microscope  that  all  self-mastery  must 
ever  find  its  spirit  and  its  substance  in  psychic  poise — in 
psychic  self-respect — in  psychic  self-approval.  That  was 
the  keystone  in  his  arch  of  education. 

1^5 Plato:  Laws,  page  174.    The  italics  are  mine. 


198         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

Plato's  aim  in  education  was  therefore  pre-eminently 
esoteric — that  is,  he  wanted  things  right  within.  His  ulti- 
mate aim  was  the  internal  soundness  of  the  individual.  But 
his  means  of  obtaining  that  education  was  overwhelmingly 
exoteric — that  is,  in  association  with  the  world.  Plato  never 
spoke  from  the  cave  of  a  hermit.  His  education  was  for 
sane  conduct — and  most  emphatically  not  for  thought  in 
itself.  Indeed,  nothing  would  more  surely  upset  the  har- 
mony of  the  human  mind  than  a  life  of  introverted  men- 
tality— a  fact  in  itself  which  should  prove  to  anyone  the 
utter  folly  of  the  charge  that  Plato 's  education  would  turn 
the  mind  inward  upon  itself  to  ramble  around  in  *'a  color- 
less world  of  thought ' '.  Plato  was  entirely  too  wise  a  man 
not  to  see  that  expression  is  a  principle  of  growth — and  ac- 
cordingly that  conduct  is  the  one  means  of  education  that 
can  never  be  dispensed  with  under  any  circumstances.  Of 
course,  Plato  never  came  out  with  a  definite  enunciation  of 
this  specific  thought — but  just  the  same  I  can  read  clearly 
the  spirit  of  the  man. 

But  in  spite  of  the  fact  and  indispensability  of  exoteric 
instruments,  Plato  was  not  a  man  to  be  blinded  by  means. 
In  his  eye  was  ever  the  end  of  education — and  he  saw 
that  clearly  to  be  the  individual,  and  not  society.  He  per- 
ceived with  an  unwavering  attention,  that  the  first  great 
desideratum  in  the  educational  process  is  to  focus  con- 
sciousness on  what  it  is  that  is  taking  place  in  the  mind 
of  the  child,  the  youth  and  the  man.  It  was  that  great 
fact  which  led  Plato  to  propound  his  principle  of  inner 
mental  harmony.  In  so  doing  Plato  simply  established 
the  fact  that  he  had  the  perception  to  detect  the  dif- 
ference between  the  hasehall  and  the  hat.  He  knew  that 
the  thing  that  we  must  keep  our  eye  on  in  life  is  the  ball — 
and  not  the  bat,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  in  a  ball  game 
the  bat  is  just  as  indispensahle  as  the  ball  is.  But,  just 
the  same,  no  one  would  ever  expect  to  get  any  place  in 
a  ball  game  hy  keeping  Ms  eye  on  the  hat.  Any  ten  year 
old  boy  in  this  country  could  tell  our  educators  that  just 
as  well  as  Plato  could.     The  distinction  herein  involved 


THE   VIEWS    OF   PLATO  199 

is  a  very  important  one — for  it  is  right  here  along  this 
line  that  education  has  gotten  lost.  The  question  primarily 
at  stake  here  is  not  essentially  that  of  indispensahility 
at  all — no — but  of  relative  importance  when  the  right  of 
fii^st  claim  on  consciousness  is  invoked.  To  be  sure,  there 
are  thousands  of  things  that  are  indispensahle  in  education 
— but  that  thought  does  not  come  within  planet-distance  of 
our  actual  problem,  which  rather  is  just  this,  namely: 
How  relatively  important  is  this  thing  or  that  thing — 
what  are  its  claims  to  focal  consciousness  in  the  human 
mind  ? 

Well,  I  repeat,  therefore,  that  in  this  particular  ques- 
tion our  great  educational  concern  must  be :  What  are  ive 
goi7ig  to  keep  our  eye  on?     That  is  to  say,  ivliat  is  the  hall? 

Plato  says  that  it  is  the  hiim.an  mind.  I  say  that 
Plato  is  right.  But  Plato  does  not  say  that  the  human 
mind  is  the  entire  game  and  the  entire  equipment  of  the 
game.  He  admits  that  there  are  other  things — such  as 
bats  and  bases  and  players  and  spectators.  The  human 
mind  is  the  hall  only.  Plato  has  never  pretended  that 
the  baseball  is  for  individual  juggling  in  the  realms  of 
''Oriental  asceticism"  or  in  **a  colorless  world  of  thought '\ 
Those  who  would  charge  that  he  has  ever  laid  down  any 
such  a  ridiculous  claim  are  simply  not  acquainted  with 
the  facts. 

Finally  now  in  closing  this  chapter  I  am  compelled 
to  say  that  I  have  purposely  stepped  out  of  my  regular 
way  to  defend  at  considerable  length  the  name  of  Plato. 
But  I  have  done  so  only  as  a  deeply  felt  duty  to  the  cause 
of  truth,  and  out  of  pure  justice  to  that  great  man.  I 
therefore  have  no  apology  to  offer  to  any  person  for  my 
apparent  digressions  at  times.  In  fact,  a  large  part  of 
my  defense  of  Plato  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a 
detailed  elaboration  on  his  educational  doctrine — and  that 
has  been  my  aim  throughout :  To  reveal  Plato  as  he  is — and 
not  as  libel  has  labeled  him.  I  heartily  trust  that  in 
the  future  those  who-  attempt  to  criticise  f*lato  ^hall 
first  read  him — also  that  those  who  proceed  to  read  him 


200         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

may  first  place  themselves  in  a  neutral  attitude  by  wash- 
ing out  of  their  minds  the  dominating  obsession  of  the 
social  fallacy  as  the  purpose  of  education. 

Then  too  some  might  inquire  at  the  last  minute  how  it 
comes  that  I  have  devoted  all  my  attention  to  the  courage 
for  which  Plato  argues,  without  scarcely  more  than  men- 
tioning Plato's  call  for  the  presence  of  justice  and  temper- 
ance as  further  ingredients  of  the  harmonized  mind.  My 
answer:  First,  because  I  regard  courage  as  the  keystone  of 
mental  harmony,  as  Plato  does;  second,  because  the  prin- 
ciple of  hiological  integrity  rests  so  squarely  on  the  driving 
out  of  fear  from  the  soul  of  the  individual,  that  to 
attempt  to  talk  about  justice  and  temperance  at  the  same 
time  in  the  work  which  I  have  herein  undertaken  would 
be  only  to  add  complexity  to  the  task,  and  weaken  our 
presentation  of  the  main  issue — that  is,  the  pedagogy  of 
the  case  alone  demands  that  courage  occupy  our  undivided 
attention,  at  least  for  the  present;  third,  our  time  and 
space  are  limited.  At  some  later  day  we  may  return 
to  Plato's  two  remaining  elements  and  deal  with  them 
apart  from  co\irage.  For  the  time  being,  suffice  it  to 
say  that  we  must  be  in  entire  agreement  with  Plato  when 
he  includes  justice  and  temperance  as  the  two  minors  in 
his  triad  of  mental  harmony.  Then  too  let  the  reader 
never  forget,  that  Plato's  comprehension  and  treatment  of 
courage  is  so  vast  and  illuminating  as  to  include,  in  the 
larger  sense,  both  justice  and  temperance^  since  he  would 
leave  with  every  individual  one  fear:  The  fear  **to  say  or 
suffer  or  do  anything  hase''  (see  references  115  and  116). 
I  too  would  leave  that  same  fear  with  every  individual 
in  the  great  mental  harmony  process  of  courage  building. 
The  solidity  of  life's  psychic  fibre  demands  it. 

In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  deal  with  the  special  sig- 
nificance of  courage  from  the  standpoint  of  hiological 
integrity. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY 

COURAGE  AND  COWARDICE 

In  the  last  chapter  the  educational  doctrines  of  Plato 
were  discussed.  They  were  seen  to  relate  to  the  develop- 
ment of  harmony  within  the  human  mind,  or  the  unfold- 
ment  of  the  faculties  in  accordance  with  the  demands  of 
self-mastery  and  happiness.  The  presence  of  courage  was 
set  forth  as  the  very  keystone  of  mental  harmony.  The 
other  principles  imposed  by  Plato,  namely,  temperance  and 
justice^  were  not  elaborated  on  by  me  because  of  pedagogical 
reasons  and  owing  to  the  fact'  that  courage  is  the  great 
lost  note  in  education  today — as  it  has  ever  been.  In  the 
present  chapter  I  shall  deal  with  courage  in  a  more  spe- 
cific way,  contrasting  it  with  cowardice. 

First  of  all,  there  exists  a  desire  for  courage  from  one 
end  of  creation  to  the  other — from  the  lowest  amoeba  to 
the  highest  man.  The  desire  for  courage  is  innate,  in- 
stinctive and  universal.  Any  conscious  organism  which 
lacks  courage,  knows  it — and  feels  that  lack  bitterly,  deeply, 
indeed — because  self-preservation',  which  is  always  a  spir- 
itual affair,  demands  courage  as  its  chief  psychic  ingredient. 
The  very  spirit  of  self-mastery  and  self -approval  in  one's 
own  eyes  craves  for  courage  as  for  nothing  else  that  has 
ever  entered  into  the  mental  domains  of  a  created  world. 
The  longing  call  for  courage  is  absolutely  the  most  funda- 
mental feeling  and  the  most  universally  innate  craving 
of  any  feeling  or  instinct  known  to  creation.  Nothing  else 
is  so  persistently  operative  as  a  feeling  as  the  call  for  cour- 
age. And  just  as  certainly  the  consciousness  that  that 
mental  quality  is  lacking  causes  the  greatest  feeling  of 

201 


202  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

void  and  vacancy  and  helplessness  and  insufficiency  and 
weakness  and  worthlessness,  of  any  consciousness  that  could 
befall  an  individual.  There  is  simply  nothing  at  all  com- 
parable to  the  self-enforced  admission  that  courage  is 
lacking.  Other  feelings  may  engulf  one  for  the  time  being 
in  a  certain  way,  such  as  sadness,  sorrow,  anger,  hatred, 
shame,  disappointment,  and  the  like — but  it  remains  for 
cowardice  alone  to  transform  consciousness  into  a  desert  of 
unspeakable  and  undefinable  despair,  combined  with  the 
haunting  horror  of  admitted  helplessness  and  self-accusa- 
tion. So  I  say,  therefore,  since  the  call  for  courage  is  a 
great  surging  instinct,  consequently  the  consciousness  of 
cowardice  is  the  most  horrible  and  destructive  of  all  mental 
states. 

Then  in  the  second  place,  closely  related  to  the  instinc- 
tive nature  of  courage,  is  the  fact  that  down  deep  within 
the  human  heart  every  person  thoroughly  believes  that  by 
proper  conduct  his  life  is  to  become  great.  That  feeling 
we  might  say  is  also  instinctive.  But  it  is  likewise  just  as 
instinctive  to  feel  that  courage  is  the  one  magical  power 
that  leads  to  the  gateway  of  attainment  for  which  the  indi- 
vidual longs.  But  that  courage  is  always  lacking  where 
the  individual 's  education  has  not  been  normal  with  respect 
to  the  faculty  of  courage — and  that  is  the  case  with  perhaps 
at  least  999  people  out  of  every  1000,  almost  regardless  of 
the  kind  or  number  of  diplomas  that  they  may  carry 
around — ^because  current  diplomas  have  to  do  with  the  in- 
tellect only.  They  have  almost  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
courage,  since  world  education  has  been  literally  an  intel- 
lectual obsession.  The  feelings  and  the  will  have  been 
thrown  into  the  discard  of  oblivion.  Cowardice  is  there- 
fore the  chief  mental  equipment  of  the  typical  individual 
everywhere.  Consequently  the  instinctive  dream  of  every 
individual  for  courage  and  greatness  goes  as  a  beggar  trail- 
ing past  the  rich  counters  of  life — and  the  victim  of  it  all 
knows  only  too  vividly  that  he  is  in  fact  a  victim. 

From  Emerson's  essay  on  Self -Reliance  I  have  gleaned 
the  following  pertinent  sentences :  * '  In  every  work  of  genius 


COUEAGE   AND   COWAEDICE  203 

we  recognize  our  own   rejected  thoughts Bravely 

let  him  speak  the  utmost  syllable  of  his  confession 

We  but  half  express  ourselves,  and  are  ashamed  of  that 

divine  idea  which  each  of  us  represents God  will  not 

have  his  work  made  manifest  by  cowards The  sinew 

and  the  heart  of  man  seems  to  be  drawn  out,  and  we  are 

become  timorous  whimperers It  is  easy  to  see  that 

a  greater  self-reliance — a  new  respect  for  the  divinity  of 
man — must  work  a  revolution  in  all  the  offices  and  relations 
of  men ;  in  their  religion ;  in  their  education ;  in  their  pur- 
suits;  in  their  modes  of  living;  in  their  association;  in 

their  property ;  in  their  speculative  views Caratach 

in  Fletcher's  Bonduca,  when  admonished  to  inquire  the 
mind  of  the  God  Audate,  replies : 

'His  hidden  meaning  lies  in  our  endeavors, 
Our  valors  are  our  best  Gods' ". 

And  the  secret  of  everything  that  Emerson  thus  says 
lies  in  the  one  single  sentence  that  he  speaks,  namely : '  *  God 
will  not  have  his  work  made  manifest  by  cowards."  And 
the  tragedy  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  the  coward  knows 
that  fact  better  than  Emerson.  To  be  sure  *'In  every  work 
of  genius  we  recognize  our  own  rejected  thoughts" — for 
the  reason  that  we  lacked  the  courage  to  carry  those 
thoughts  through — for  the  reason  that  we  are  silently  domi- 
nated by  paralyzed  feelings.  As  Kant  has  said,  it  is  our 
own  emotional  possibilities,  rather  than  the  moral  law  be- 
fore which  each  individual  stands  in  awe.  But  the  awe 
of  cowardice,  in  which  every  coward  stands,  is  without  equal 
or  parallel  or  comparison  in  all  the  Universe.  Emerson 
understated  his  case — the  sinew  and  heart  of  man  is  drawn 
out — there  is  no  seeming  whatever  about  it. 

Seneca  has  said  that,  "The  greatest  man  is  he  who 
chooses  right  with  the  most  invincible  determination". 
Countless  millions  know  what  is  right,  and  with  that  knowl- 
edge they  have  the  vision  of  high  attainment  and  noble 
service — but,  alas,  the  invincible  determination  is  not  there, 
for  their  portion  is  cowardice!    For  the  want  of  courage 


204  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

their  entire  mental  estates  are  as  a  desert  before  their  very 
eyes — and  thereon  lie  their  hopes  and  dreams  and  inspira- 
tions withered  to  the  last  degree  of  depletion.  It  is  no 
wonder  that  Sydney  Smith  saw  fit  to  utter  the  following 
words :  ' '  A  great  deal  of  talent  is  lost  in  the  world  for  the 
want  of  a  little  courage.  Every  day  sends  to  their  graves 
men  who  have  only  remained  in  obscurity  because  their 
timidity  has  prevented  them  from  making  a  first  effort". 
That  timidity  is  of  course  cowardice — and  cowardice  is 
always  the  flower  and  the  fruitage  of  fear.  Fear  is  always 
cowardice  in  the  making.  The  fears  that  education  and 
civilization  permit  to  implant  themselves  in  the  mind  of 
the  individual  are  therefore  responsible  for  more  than  the 
cowardice  of  mankind — they  are  also  the  robbers  of  the 
highest  destinies  of  every  individual  who  ever  entertained  a 
dream  of  becoming  great  in  terms  of  self-mastery  and  in 
terms  of  a  worthy  service  rendered  to  the  world.  Indeed, 
cowardice  is  guilty  of  a  thousand  times  more  than  pre- 
venting its  legions  of  victims  **from  making  a  first  effort" 
— it  also  is  guilty  of  nullifying  and  abrogating  every  effort 
that  a  coward  may  make. 

Lord  Lytton  spoke  with  a  true  vision  when  he  gave 
voice  to  the  following  words — 

"All  things  are  thine  estate;  yet  must 
Thou  first  display  the  title  deeds, 
And  sue  the  world.     Be  strong;  and  trust 
High  instincts  more  than  all  the  creeds." 
But  if  the  essence  and  the  background  of  strength  are 
lacking,  then  it  avails  nothing  merely  to  admonish  the  vic- 
tim to  ''be  strong".     The  coward  has  no  basis  on  which 
to  be  strong — for  courage,  the  highest  of  all  ''high  in- 
stincts", is  gone.     The  very  will  with  which  such  a  person 
would  determine  is  paralyzed,  and  the  innermost  substance 
of  his  mind  is  but  an  amorphous  mass  of  nothingness.     The 
foundations  of  possible  power  haven't  even  the  shade  of  a 
shadow  to  rest  upon. 

And  yet  in  the  presence  of  the  awful  mental  wreckage 
induced  and  imposed  by  cowardice,  present  day  education 


COURAGE  AND   COWARDICE  205 

stands  as  deaf  and  as  dumb  as  a  tombstone.  Dewey,  for 
example,  has  this  to  say:  "I  believe  that  if  we  can  only 
secure  right  habits  of  action  and  thought,  with  reference 
to  the  good,  the  true,  the  beautiful,  the  emotions  will  for 
the  most  part  take  care  of  themselves"."^ 

This  is  how  Dewey  would  dispose  of  the  emotions  in 
education !  He  would  devote  a  few  general  lines  to  a  mere 
mention  of  ''the  good,  the  true,  the  beautiful" — and  then 
he  bids  farewell  to  the  education  of  the  emotions!  Then 
"the  emotions  will  for  the  most  part  take  care  of  them- 
selves" !  And  it  may  well  be  added  that  they  most  assuredly 
have — cowardice  and  fear  have  seen  to  that  part  of  it !  The 
emotions  have  become  auto-educated,  as  Dewey  w^ould  have 
them !  At  any  rate,  in  his  educational  creed,  he  thus  de- 
votes but  34  words  of  the  most  general  type  to  the  entire 
field  of  the  emotions — and  not  once  does  he  so  much  as 
even  mention  the  word  courage!  Plato  devoted  the  greater 
part  of  his  two  great  w^orks  to  that  element  in  the  keenest 
and  most  specific  analytical  manner  conceivable — ^but  mod- 
ern education  would  generalize  in  a  few  words  about  "the 
good,  the  true,  the  beautiful",  and  then  set  the  individual 
adrift  for  himself,  to  fioat  out  on  the  great  sea  of  cowardice ! 
That  is  about  the  type  of  educational  consciousness  and 
educational  penetration  entering  into  the  educational  creeds 
of  modern  educators!  That  fact  marks  well  in  itself  the 
difference  between  Plato  and  the  typical  pedagogue  of  the 
twentieth  century. 

Let  us  face  the  fact,  that  the  emotions  wdll  not  "take 
care  of  themselves".  A  thousand  times  would  I  rather  re- 
sign the  intellect  to  "take  care  of"  itself,  than  for  the 
emotions  thus  to  be  resigned.  Plato's  educational  doctrine 
demands  harmony  between  the  development  of  the  intel- 
lect, the  emotions  and  the  will.  But  in  modem  education, 
there  is  no  harmony.  The  intellect  has  usurped  everything. 
The  emotions  and  the  will  have  gone  completely  to  weeds. 
They  have  been  left ' '  to  take  care  of  themselves  " !    I  speak 

1^6  John  Dewey  in  Educational  Creeds  of  the  Nineteenth  Century ; 
edited  by  Lang,  page  17. 


206  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

of  the  emotions  and  the  will  together,  because  the  latter  is 
largely  a  flowering  out  of  the  former.  The  emotions  are 
therefore  the  very  cornerstone  of  our  mental  structure — 
and  courage  of  course  is  the  keystone  of  the  emotions. 
Therefore,  as  are  the  emotions,  so  will  be  the  will. 

But  let  us  note  carefully  the  diseases  of  the  will.  They 
are  three  in  number:  1.  Insanity.  2.  An  ill-developed 
mind.  3.  Some  single  faculty  itself  abnormal.  But  the 
overwhelming  number  of  cases  of  diseased  will  come  under 
heading  number  two — an  ill-developed  mind  wnth  ajl  the 
individual  functions  remaining  normal!  Think  of  that — 
all  individual  functions  remaining  normal,  hut  merely  in- 
harmony  letiveen  them!  A  perfectly  good  mind — a  per- 
fectly good  brain — but  everything  in  a  state  of  chaos  and 
wreckage,  due  to  inharmony  in  the  process  of  mental  de- 
velopment! Merely  a  case  of  inharynony!  Simply  a  case 
of  fear  and  cowardice  throttling  not  only  the  emotions  and 
the  will,  but  the  intellect  as  well !  And  yet  Plato  was  only 
an  old  fool !  Once  upon  a  time  he  used  to  write  along  such 
lines — warning  the  world  to  look  well  and  first  of  all  to 
mental  harmony  within  the  mind  of  the  individual — and 
behold,  the  world  in  turn  called  him  a  dreamer — an  idealist 
— an  Oriental  ascetic!  And  foremost  among  them  our  edu- 
cational leaders !    '^Et  tu,  Brute^l 

Our  immediate  and  overawing  fact  is  this:  Cowardice 
is  a  disease  of  the  will.  That  simply  means  that  it  is  a  dis- 
ease of  the  emotions.  That  is  fundamentally  where  coward- 
ice and  fear  must  rest.  As  pointed  out  in  chapter  six  it  is 
the  tone  of  an  individual's  feelings  that  counts.  Cowardice 
is  always  the  dominant  tone  of  any  mind  that  has  been 
fed  on  fears.  And  that  tone  is  so  impelling  and  so  per- 
sistent, and  so  totally  foreign  to  the  state  and  demands  of 
a  normally  harmonized  mind,  that  cowardice  is  a  disease. 
It  represents  a  pathological  condition  in  the  mental  and 
nervous  organization  of  the  individual — not  inherited  at  all, 
but  simply  acquired  within  the  life  term  of  the  victim  by 
and  through  the  process  of  an  education  which  simply 
does  not  know  its  business. 


COURAGE   AND   COWARDICE  207 

The  first  duty  of  education  is  therefore  to  prevent  and 
checkmate  the  development  of  pathological  conditions  in 
the  human  mind.  The  ill-developed  mind  is  the  one  great 
disease  that  has  always  afflicted  mankind.  It  is  the  one 
supreme  pathology,  to  which  all  else  is  subordinate.  The 
therapeutics  for  it  all  is — not  grammar  and  arithmetic — 
but  rational  education  with  respect  to  fear  in  every  con- 
scious and  unconscious  educational  process  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  Then  courage  will  energize  the  entire  mind 
and  being.  And  with  courage  in  the  soul  the  last  vestige 
of  major  mental  pathology  is  washed  away. 

' '  Courage  conquers  all  things ;  it  even  gives  strength  to 
the  body.  A  spirit  is  superior  to  every  weapon.  To  wish 
for  death  is  the  coward's  part"."^  But  as  Shakespeare 
has  said,  ''A  coward  dies  many  times  before  his  death". 
The  coward's  wish  for  death  is  in  vaiu,  for  his  very  exist- 
ence is  death  to  the  uttermost.  No  death  can  possibly  com- 
pare with  that  death  which  is  unending,  and  whose  vigilant 
witness  is  the  eternal  and  accusing  eye  of  self-consciousness. 
As  Plautus  has  stated,  ''It  does  not  matter  a  feather 
whether  a  man  be  supported  by  patron  or  client,  if  he 
himself  wants  courage."  No  more  does  it  matter  that  the 
birds  sing  if  there  be  no  ears  to  establish  the  reality  of 
their  songs. 

Thackeray  has  wondered  if  it  is  "because  men  are  cow- 
ards in  their  hearts,  that  they  admire  bravery  so  much.'* 
By  no  means  is  that  the  answer.  As  I  have  pointed  out 
from  the  very  beginning  the  call  for  courage  is  imtincUve, 
Biological  integrity  demands  it  and  must  have  it  wherever 
it  obtains.  Courage  is  the  one  great  guarantee  that  degener- 
acy can  be  averted.  Every  personality  feels  the  courage 
call  through  and  through.  It  is  call  one.  The  presence  of 
bravery  in  others  merely  awakens  within  us  the  perception 
of  our  innermost  longings — the  recognition  of  that  soul  ele- 
ment which  should  be  duly  and  truly  our  own — and  while 
we  admire,  we  are  the  same  time  crushed  at  the  mocks  and 


"7  From  Ovid. 


208         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

taunts  of  that  vivid  awareness  of  our  own  lack,  of  our 
own  weakness. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  well  said  that,  "Without  courage, 
there  cannot  be  truth,  and  without  truth  there  can  be  no 
other  virtue."  If  this  be  true  in  an  outward  public  way, 
how  infinitely  truer  it  is  when  it  comes  to  dealing  with  the 
inner  realms  of  personality!  Johnson  himself  has  said 
that  ''Courage  is  a  quality  so  necessary  for  maintaining 
virtue,  that  it  is  always  respected,  even  when  associated 
with  vice '  \  This  is  because  of  the  fact  that  of  all  mental 
elements  in  the  Universe  courage  is  the  soundest  and  has 
back  of  it  the  largest  measure  of  creative  sanction  of  any 
feeling  known  to  consciousness.  There  is  something  about 
courage,  the  necessity  for  which  no  one  would  any  more 
think  of  denying  than  the  necessity  for  food  and  air.  * '  The 
conscience  of  every  man  recognizes  courage  as  the  foun- 
dation of  manliness,  and  manliness  as  the  perfection  of  hu- 
man character".  Thus  has  spoken  Thomas  Hughes.  We 
must  not  make  the  mistake,  however,  of  associating  courage 
as  a  characteristic  belonging  exclusively  to  7nen.  Courage 
must  be  accepted  as  a  universal  trait,  and  as  such  it  is 
just  as  much  an  estate  of  womanhood  as  it  is  of  manhood. 

Plutarch  says  that,  ''Courage  consists  in  hazarding  with- 
out fear,  but  being  resolutely  minded  in  a  just  cause".  In 
that  one  sentence  Plutarch  voices  the  unmistakable  bearing 
of  fear  upon  courage.  He  would  root  fear  out  of  the  human 
soul  in  order  that  each  individual  might  be  "resolutely 
minded  in  a  just  cause".  As  Emerson  puts  it  in  his  essay 
on  "Heroism" — "Each  of  the  Lives  of  Plutarch  is  a  refu- 
tation of  the  despondency  and  cowardice  of  our  religious 
and  political  theorists.  A  wild  courage,  a  stoicism,  not  of 
the  schools,  but  of  the  blood,  shines  in  every  anecdote,  and 
has  given  that  book  its  immense  fame.  Our  culture,  there- 
fore, must  not  omit  the  arming  of  the  man.  Let  him  hear  in 
season  ....  that  he  should  not  go  dancing  in  the  weeds 
of  peace,  but  warned,  self-collected,  and  neither  defying  nor 
dreading  the  thunder ;  let  him  take  both  reputation  and  life 
in  hand,  and  with  a  perfect  urbanity,  dare  the  gibbet  and 


COURAGE   A^'D    COWARDICE  209 

the  mob  by  the  absolute  truth  of  his  speech,  and  the  recti- 
tude of  his  behavior.  To  this  military  attitude  of  the  soul 
we  give  the  name  Heroism.  The  hero  is  a  mind  of  such 
stuff  that  no  disturbance  can  shake  his  will.  Self-trust  is 
the  essence  of  heroism.  When  the  spirit  is  not  the  master 
of  the  world,  then  is  it  its  dupe.  The  temperance  of  the 
hero  proceeds  from  the  wish  to  do  no  dishonor  to  the 
worthiness  that  he  has.  In  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Sea 
Voyage,  Juletta  tells  the  stout  captain  and  his  company — 
Juletta :  Why,  slaves,  'tis  in  our  power  to  hang  ye.  Master : 
Very  likely,  'tis  in  our  powers  then  to  be  hanged,  and  scorn 
ye"! 

Emerson's  words  are  gems  of  the  profoundest  wisdom: 
When  the  spirit  is  not  the  master  of  the  world,  then  is  it 
its  dupe!  Let  us  remember  that  one  sentence  as  the  essen- 
tial inner  essence  of  self-preservation — and  as  a  further 
illumination  of  the  principle  of  hiological  integrity,  which  I 
am  laying  down  as  purpose  one  in  all  education.  Indeed, 
I  am  astounded  that  education  has  never  picked  up  any 
educational  cues  from  such  a  giant  as  Emerson — for  Emer- 
son wrote  as  wisely  in  many  of  his  utterances  as  did  Plato, 
as  for  example  in  the  very  keen  association  that  he  makes 
between  courage  and  temperance  in  one  of  the  above  sen- 
tences, namely :  The  temperance  of  the  hero  proceeds  from 
the  wish  to  do  no  dishonor  to  the  worthiness  that  he  has. 
As  a  thought,  that  is  something  which  is  distinctly  supple- 
mental to  Plato's  conception  of  temperance. 

However,  if  Emerson  insists  on  speaking  literally  at  all 
times,  which  I  know  that  he  does  not,  then  I  should  be 
compelled  to  take  issue  w^ith  him  when  he  refers  above  to 
"the  arming  of  the  man."  No  one  can  ever  make  me  be- 
lieve that  the  real  courage  of  the  world  is  to  be  found  on 
the  battlefields  of  war — where  a  great  mob  mind  is  pre- 
vailing— and  where  individual  hazards  are  swallowed  up  in 
the  fog  of  either  numbers  or  excitement  or  both.  No !  The 
courage  of  the  world  is  demanded  on  the  battlefields  of 
peace — where  sanity  reigns — where  a  million  focused  eyes  are 
upon  every  individual  contestant — and  where  the  roar  and 
11 


I^IU  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

thunder  of  cannon  and  music  are  not.  Plato  saw  this  fact 
most  clearly  when  he  pointed  out  the  overwhelming  superi- 
ority of  the  courage  of  peace  over  the  courage  of  war  (see 
references  129  and  130,  preceding  chapter,  together  with 
the  comments  which  immediately  precede  and  follow) .  The 
great  demands  of  life  are  the  demands  of  peace.  I  question 
most  seriously  the  attempt  to  inject  courage  into  mankind 
by  means  of  military  training.  Such  a  formula  is  entirely 
too  crude — too  superficial — and  above  all,  too  far  removed 
from  the  foundations  of  courage :  Childhood.  By  this  I  do 
not  mean  at  all  to  despise  or  belittle  the  courage  that  goes 
with  things  military,  but  simply  to  point  out  that  I  object 
to  the  literal '  *  arming  of  the  man, ' '  as  the  essential  founda- 
tion of  either  individual  or  national  courage.  However, 
Emerson  had  no  such  literal  meaning  in  his  mind  at  all. 
I  have  merely  taken  advantage  of  this  opportunity  to  make 
it  clear  to  the  world  that  in  speaking  of  courage  I  am  not 
primarily  thinking  about  the  making  of  either  soldiers  or 
pugilists — though  every  individual  should  have  within  him 
the  spirit  to  make  either.  Therefore,  when  it  comes  to  the 
spiritual  *' arming  of  the  man"  I  am  unanimously  with 
Emerson.  Aside  of  such  an  arming  any  mere  physical 
arming  is  a  very  secondary  matter. 

Speaking  of  courage,  Shakespeare  says  that,  ''He  hath 
borne  himself  beyond  the  promise  of  his  age,  doing  in  the 
figure  of  a  lamb  the  feats  of  a  lion."  The  biological  in- 
tegrity of  every  individual  demands  a  balanced  and  un- 
shakable mind  in  just  that  degree.  That  is,  in  truth,  a 
real  arming.  ''In  the  whole  range  of  earthly  experience", 
says  J.  McHolmes,  "no  quality  is  more  attractive  and  en- 
nobling than  moral  courage."  But  the  fact  to  be  remem- 
bered is,  that  moral  courage  is  neither  a  dream  nor  an  aim- 
less wish.  Its  background  is  a  normally  educated  and  de- 
veloped mind,  devoid  of  every  trace  of  cowardice-pathology. 
Moral  courage  and  a  wrecked  mental  and  nervous  organiza- 
tion cannot  dwell  together  in  the  same  being.  The  essence 
of  moral  courage  is  the  simple  essence  of  common  courage — 
the  simple  essence  of  harmoniously  unfolded  souls  at  work. 


COURAGE   AND   COWARDICE  211 

In  this  particular  connection,  John  Flavel  most  perti- 
nently inquires :  ' '  Is  it  for  the  honor  of  religion  that  Chris- 
tians should  be  as  timorous  as  hares,  to  start  at  every 
sound  ? ' '  Most  assuredly,  it  is  not !  Plutarch  gave  a  sig- 
nificant answer  when  he  said  that,  ' '  God  is  the  brave  man 's 
hope,  and  the  coward's  excuse".  The  point  is  this:  The 
embracing  of  any  ideal  in  itself  amounts  to  nothing — unless 
that  ideal  is  analyzed,  and  its  basic  elements  comprehended 
and  appropriated.  Granted  an  ill-developed  mind  through 
the  constant  feeding  in  from  a  thousand  torrents  of  fear, 
then  Christianity  degenerates  into  a  mere,  nominal  affair. 
It  would  be  no  more  of  a  guarantee  of  individual  courage 
than  the  clothes  that  one  might  wear.  Religion  must  con- 
stitute a  rational  and  living  philosophy,  or  else  it  is  next 
to  nothing.  This  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  religion 
must  dovetail  in  every  particular  with  the  demands  of 
sound  mind  hnilding.  It  must  harmonize  in  every  way 
with  the  interaction  of  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body. 
Such  a  religion  will  be  rooted  in  the  basic  requirements  of 
a  personality  that  is  shot  through  and  through  with  courage. 
With  such  a  foundation,  moral  courage  will  not  be  lacking 
in  the  world — nor  will  it  longer  be  necessary  for  Flavel  to 
be  exercised  concerning  the  cowardice  of  Christians. 

Voltaire  has  said  that,  ''It  is  the  misfortune  of  worthy 
people  that  they  are  cowards."  No  more  pathetic  truth 
was  ever  uttered — for  it  makes  no  difference  how  worthy  a 
person  may  be,  if  he  is  a  coward.  Regardless  of  his  wisdo7n, 
his  justice,  his  temperance,  if  courage  be  lacking,  then  his 
personality  and  his  power  are  wreckage.  The  worthy  per- 
son of  that  type  is  simply  lacking  the  mental  harmony  for 
which  Plato  pleaded.  Civilization  therefore  has  but  itself 
to  thank  for  its  cowards.  It  has  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  a 
set  of  mental  faculties,  whose  fundamental  demand  is,  that 
they  be  harmoniously  unfolded.  It  is  indeed  no  wonder 
that  so  many  worthy  people  never  do  anything  in  the  way 
of  aggression  for  community  and  national  and  world  better- 
ment. They  are  cowards.  They  are  afraid  of  their  own 
shadows.     In  the  midst  of  anything  that  looks  like  even  the 


212         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

cloud  of  a  contest  they  collapse — hastening  to  apologize  to 
their  adversaries  for  being  in  the  right,  or  even  for  being 
on  earth  at  all !     It  is  no  wonder  that  Dryden  says : 

"A  coward  is  the  kindest  animal; 
'Tis  the  most  forgiving  creature  in  a  fight." 

Rightly  understood,  there  is  nothing  sounder  than  the 
philosophy  which  says,  '^Turn  the  other  cheek."  But  as 
commonly  understood  and  accepted  in  the  abstract,  no  doc- 
trine could  be  more  vicious.  The  principle  is  sound  when 
it  is  the  strong  who  do  the  turning — and  by  the  strong  I 
mean  those  who  are  not  crushed  in  spirit.  But  it  is  the 
essence  of  folly  when  the  turning  is  done  hy  a  coward. 
There  is  absolutely  nothing  whatever  in  any  philosophy, 
save  hollowness,  which  would  project  sacrifice  as  a  desirable 
trait  for  weaklings.  All  sacrifice  belongs  to  the  strong — 
and  then  indeed  is  sacrifice  really  noble.  To  account  sac- 
rifice noble  for  the  weakling,  when  cowardice  alone  impels, 
is  one  of  the  most  dangerous  rules  of  action  or  of  ethics 
that  one  could  possibly  conceive.  In  the  same  light,  ' '  Dis- 
cretion is  the  better  part  of  valor"  belongs  to  the  cour- 
ageous alone.  At  heart,  every  coward  in  the  world  knows 
that  it  does  not  belong  to  him.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
doctrine  in  the  world,  therefore,  that  rings  sound  in  the 
heart  of  the  courageous — but  which  is  utterly  fallacious  in 
the  hands  of  the  cowardly. 

With  his  usual  insight,  Alexander  Pope  says  that,  *'A 
brave  man  thinks  no  one  his  superior  who  does  him  an 
injury;  for  he  has  it  in  his  power  to  make  himself  superior 
to  the  other  by  forgiving  it".  That  is  it  exactly — the  hrave 
man.  To  be  sure,  the  coward  may  also  forgive — ^but  when 
he  does  so  he  is  performing  but  a  helpless  and  hopeless 
imitation  of  real  worth.  His  forgiveness  carries  with  it 
but  a  burning  consciousness  of  his  own  crushing.  Instead 
of  a  resulting  nobility  of  feeling  and  a  sense  of  self-mastery, 
there  is  but  the  gnawing  sensation  of  self-mortification.  As 
Goethe  puts  it,  ''Courage  and  modesty  are  the  most  un- 
equivocal of  virtues,  for  they  are  a  kind  that  hypocrisy 


COURAGE   AND   COWARDICE  213 

cannot  imitate".  The  coward  of  course  does  not  aim  at 
hypocrisy — he  simply  hits  that  mark  without  being  able 
to  help  it.  Any  insincerity  is  but  the  mantle  of  his  fears, 
which  he  cannot  help,  and  for  which  he  is  to  be  pitied — • 
and  for  which  the  education  of  the  world  is  to  be  condemned 
in  the  most  merciless  terms.  The  modesty  of  the  coward 
is  but  the  spirit  of  the  indefinable  weakness  which  engulfs 
him.  His  seeming  modesty  is  ever  with  him  but  a  gift 
of  regret — for  it  is  not  in  his  power  to  do  otherwise  than  to 
submit  to  everything. 

All  the  world  is  perhaps  familiar  with  the  famous  in- 
scriptions on  the  gates  of  Busyrane.  On  the  first  gate  is: 
''Be  Bold".  On  the  second  gate:  ''Be  bold,  be  bold,  and 
evermore  be  bold  " !  On  the  third  gate :  "  Be  not  too  bold ' ' ! 
Inspired  by  these  inscriptions  and  the  great  principle  of 
courage  for  which  they  stand,  Longfellow  was  led  to  pen  the 
following  lines: 

"Write  on  your  doors  the  saying  wise  and  old 
Be  bold!  be  bold!  and  evermore— be  bold; 
Be  not  too  bold !    Yet  better  the  excess 
Than  the  defect;  better  the  more  than  the  less; 
Better  like  Hector  in  the  field  to  die 
Than  like  a  perfumed  Paris  turn  and  fly". 

Longfellow  would  thus  have  every  individual  err  on  the 
side  of  pronounced  boldness  rather  than  on  the  side  of 
trembling  timidity.  It  is  his  way  of  ranking  courage  as  a 
virtue,  and  cowardice  as  a  vice.  All  the  great  minds  and 
hearts  of  literature  have  viewed  the  matter  in  exactly  the 
same  light.     Milton,  for  example,  has  exclaimed — 

"What  though  the  field  be  lost 
All  is  not  lost;   the  ungovernable  will  .... 
And  courage  never  to  submit  or  yield, 
And  what  is  else,  not  to  be  overcome." 

Shakespeare  is  teeming  with  the  philosophy  of  courage 
throughout.  The  following  references  are  but  three  out  of 
the  numberless  tributes  that  he  has  paid  to  courage. 


214         THE  PUEPOSE  OP  EDUCATION 

"But  screw  your  courage  to  the  sticking  place, 

And  we'll  not  fail  .  .  .  ." 
"The  mind  I  sway  by,  and  the  heart  I  bear, 

Shall  never  sag  with  doubt,  nor  quake  with  fear " 

"Cowards  die  many  times  before  their  deaths: 

The  valiant  never  taste  of  death  but  once." 

The  same  great  insight  that  led  Shakespeare  to  extol 
courage,  also  led  him  to  condemn  cowardice  most  scathingly. 
The  following  are  but  two  examples : 

"How  many  cowards,  whose  hearts  are  all  as  false 
Stairs  of  sand,  wear  yet  upon  their  chins 
The  beards  of  Hercules  and  frowning  Mars, 
Who,  inward  searched,  have  livers  white  as  milk " 

"Thou  slave,  thou  wretch,  thou  coward! 
Thou  little  valiant,  great  in  villainy! 
Thou  ever  strong  upon  the  stronger  side! 
Thou  fortune's  champion,  that  dost  never  fight" ! 

But  Shakespeare  was  wrong  in  one  particular — the 
coward  is  not  to  be  condemned,  but  pitied.  The  coward  is 
but  a  product — but  a  symptom.  The  thing  to  be  condemned 
Is  the  cause  that  is  responsible  for  him.  That  cause  is  a 
false  education.  Civilization  must  learn  to  distinguish  be- 
tween symptoms  and  diseases.  Our  real  disease  is  an  edu- 
cation which  is  not  even  aiming  at  the  right  mark.  The 
coward  is  a  manufactured  product.  Sole  responsibility 
must  rest  upon  those  who  do  the  manufacturing.  The  way 
to  drive  cowardice  from  civilization  is  not  by  condemning 
it,  but  for  civilization  itself  to  wake  up  and  try  for  awhile 
the  simple  experiment  of  using  its  eyes.  When  it  does  so, 
it  will  listen  to  the  matchless  genius  of  the  great  Plato  and 
guarantee  to  every  individual  his  rightful  inheritance  of 
courage,  of  which  Farquhar  has  spoken  as  follows : 

"Courage,  the  highest  gift  .... 
Courage— an  independent  spark  from  heaven's  bright 

throne  .... 
Courage,  the  mighty  attribute  of  powers  above- .  .  .  • 
The  spring  of  all  brave  acts  is  seated  here". 


COUEAGE   AND   COWAEDICE  215 

It  is  that  gift  which  civilization  must  bestow  upon  every 
personality  within  its  province.  And  well  indeed  may 
courage  be  called  "an  independent  spark  from  heaven's 
bright  throne",  for  courage  in  the  human  mind  is  a  har- 
mony in  accordance  with  heaven's  first  and  highest  law. 
And  when  Shakespeare  in  his  turn  speaks  of  those  ''Who, 
inward  searched,  have  livers  white  as  milk,"  we  may  well 
know  that  those  white  livers  are  but  the  pathetic  reflections 
of  minds  that  never  knew  a  moment  of  harmony  in  all  their 
chaotic  development,  from  their  first  breath  to  their  last. 

Joaquin  Miller  says  that,  ''Men  lie  who  lack  the  courage 
to  tell  the  truth — the  cowards ' ' !  But  cowardice  is  the  help- 
less habit  of  habits — the  most  deeply  ingrained  of  them  all — 
so  cowards  are  but  true  to  the  momentum  which  was  given 
them  in  their  childhood.  "It  is  the  coward, ' '  says  Junius, 
"who  fawns  upon  those  above  him.  It  is  the  coward  that 
is  insolent  whenever  he  dare  so".  But  to  fawn  and  to  be  a 
coward  are  but  one  and  the  same  thing — so  what  would 
Junius  expect?  Likewise  the  coward's  insolence  is  but  the 
coward's  sorrowful  attempt  at  courage  in  small  affairs. 
Like  a  bird  that  has  been  caged  for  life,  the  coward  flut- 
ters wildly  and  irresponsibly  when  first  given  wing  to  the 
prospect  of  momentary  freedom  and  mastery.  It  would  be 
indeed  most  remarkable  were  the  coward  to  manifest  either 
courage,  temperance  or  justice  under  such  new  and  fleet- 
ing circumstances.  Having  been  robbed  of  all  apprentice- 
ship in  the  self-mastery  that  goes  with  mental  harmony, 
how  could  the  coward  be  expected  to  conduct  himself  in  any 
other  way  but  with  insolence  and  discredit — since  psychic 
poise  is  no  real  part  of  his  personality  ? 

Bovee  has  said  that,  "For  cowards  the  road  of  desertion 
should  be  left  open.  They  will  carry  over  to  the  enemy 
nothing  but  their  fears."  Bovee  thus  places  cowardice 
where  it  belongs — on  the  fears  that  animate  the  mind.  But 
every  coward  who  deserts  life's  duties  and  demands,  does 
more  than  to  desert.  He  also  carries  with  him  an  undying 
testimonial  to  the  infamy  of  those  who  made  him  a  coward. 
Let  no  one  pride  himself  on  the  fact  of  getting  rid  of 


216         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

cowards  by  way  of  desertion.  Rather  let  the  person  who 
would  be  thus  thankful  burn  with  shame  for  the  execrable 
teachings  that  made  the  coward  what  he  is.  It  is  exclusively 
for  those  to  speak  who  may  help  to  rid  the  world  of  its 
cowardice  by  means  of  a  new  education.  Let  all  others 
maintain  their  silence! 

We  must  remember  that  at  every  turn  of  the  road,  the 
coward  is  a  diseased  victim.  This  fact  is  set  forth  with 
faultless  perception  by  J.  Beaumont  in  the  following 
words:  ''When  the  passengers  gallop  by  as  if  fear  made 
them  speedy,  the  cur  follows  them  with  an  open  mouth; 
let  them  walk  by  in  confident  neglect,  and  the  dog  will  not 
stir  at  all;  it  is  a  weakness  that  every  creature  takes  ad- 
vantage of '  \  Aside  from  the  fact  that  internally  the  cow- 
ard is  eternally  on  the  cross,  he  also  invites  external  defeat 
and  destruction — and  there  is  nothing  in  his  power  to  help 
it.  His  very  cowardice  is  a  magnet  which  attracts  every- 
thing that  spells  annihilation — for  complete  ruin  is  already 
within  him.  Johnson  has  said  that,  **  Cowardice  encroaches 
fast  upon  such  as  spend  their  lives  in  company  of  persons 
higher  than  themselves. ' '  But  Johnson  neglected  to  say  or 
to  see  that  such  is  the  case  only  where  the  generous  germs  of 
cowardice  are  present  to  begin  with — or  where  the  spiritual 
attitude  of  the  individual  is  started  wrong.  What  John- 
son has  observed  is  but  one  of  the  ways  in  which  cowardice 
is  cultivated  in  childhood,  or  completed  later  on  in  life. 
Any  person  who  has  been  given  his  full  quota  of  courage 
in  childhood,  however,  will  never  be  encroached  upon  by 
cowardice  later  on  in  life  in  the  ''company  of  persons 
higher  than  themselves",  for  the  simple  reason  that  a  per- 
son harmoniously  trained  in  the  field  of  courage,  knows 
no  superiors.  Wherever  hiological  integrity  obtains  in  the 
mind  of  the  individual,  there  is  no  such  a  classification  in 
his  thought  world  as  superiors  in  the  auto-suggested  sense 
that  he  himself  is  an  inferior.  The  courageously  spiritualized 
person  never  admits  in  the  sense  of  self-debasement  or  self- 
cringing  that  there  exists  any  such  thing  as  "company 
higher  than  himself".     Courage  is  exactly  that  element 


COURAGE  AND   COWARDICE  217 

when  diffused  through  a  harmonious  mind,  which  effectually 
guards  against  any  individual's  ever  becoming  a  victim  of 
cowardice  in  the  presence  of  anyone — because  cowardice  is 
not  a  question  of  external  classification — but  a  state  of 
inward  reality. 

'  *  True  courage  is  like  a  kite ;  a  contrary  wind  raises  it 
higher",  says  J.  Petit-Senn.  There  need  be  no  fear  of 
courage  failing  in  the  presence  of  any  environment — for 
courage  is  the  voice  within  every  individual  which  tells  him 
in  clear  and  unmistakable  tones  that  he  is  the  equal  of  any 
individual  on  earth.  Cowardice  can  never  be  the  lot  of  such 
a  person,  any  more  than  darkness  can  be  light. 

Then  too  let  this  fact  be  borne  in  mind — courage  is 
courage.  It  is  not  cowardly  insolence.  As  Beaconsfield 
said,  "Courage  is  fire,  and  bullying  is  smoke".  Where 
the  element  of  bullying  exists  it  is  final  evidence  that  either 
cowardice  is  present,  or  else  that  the  perspective  of  courage 
is  wrong — that  is  to  say,  Plato's  other  two  elements  of 
temperance  and  justice  are  lacking.  In  either  event  the 
cause  is  to  be  found  in  the  lack  of  harmony  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  mind  that  is  doing  the  bullying.  Shakespeare 
has  wisely  said,  ''How  great  to  have  the  strength  of  a  giant, 
but  how  cowardly  to  use  it  as  a  giant"!  That  sentiment 
strikes  the  nail  squarely  upon  the  head.  It  is  one  of  the 
things  which  Plato  had  in  mind  when  he  was  pleading  for 
justice  and  temperance  alongside  of  courage.  It  is  the 
thought  which  must  be  indelibly  imbedded  into  the  very  soul 
of  the  courageous  mind.  An  essential  part  of  all  courage 
education  is  to  implant  firmly  and  deeply  the  fact  that  to 
use  one's  strength  as  a  giant  is  even  worse  than  cowardice 
— and  that  bullying  is  perhaps  the  most  currishly  despicable 
trait  that  ever  entered  into  the  mind  of  either  man  or  beast. 
In  the  process  of  courage  training,  every  child  must  by  de- 
grees be  led  to  shun  becoming  a  bully  as  he  would  shun 
becoming  the  vilest  kind  of  a  reptile.  As  Froude  says, 
''Courage  is  on  all  hands,  considered  as  an  essential  of  high 
character '\  When  this  thought  is  imparted  to  personality, 
let  there  also  be  imparted  the  thought  that  bullying  and 


218  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

insolence  bespeak  nothing  but  the  rankest  type  of  infamy 
and  degeneracy.  In  other  words,  we  shall  see  more  and 
more  as  we  go  into  the  doctrine  of  Plato  and  his  three-fold 
state  of  mental  harmony,  that  that  man  did  in  fact  pene- 
trate the  field  of  education  as  no  other  writer  ever  has. 

Then  too  let  us  assimilate  the  following  thought  from 
Shaftesbury ;  '  *  True  courage  has  so  little  to  do  with  anger, 
that  there  lies  always  the  strongest  suspicion  against  it 
where  this  passion  is  the  highest ' '.  The  reason  for  this  is, 
the  fact  that  the  very  basis  of  courage  stands  for  self- 
mastery.  Courage  is  not  primarily  an  instrument  of  of- 
fensive aggression.  It  is  not  a  chip-on-the-shoulder  attitude 
at  all.  It  is  first  of  all  an  institution  of  inner  psychic  self- 
justification  or  self-approval.  It  is  a  state  of  defense  and 
poise  and  power.  It  spells  calm  and  serenity  and  confi- 
dence. The  most  courageous  person  in  the  world  should 
be  at  the  same  time  the  least  offensive.  The  function  of 
courage  becomes  prostituted  the  moment  that  any  person 
sees  in  it  a  weapon  for  indiscriminate  attack  upon  the 
world.  Courage  exists  for  but  one  purpose — and  that  pur- 
pose is  hiological  integrity.  But  the  demands  of  such  in- 
tegrity are  those  of  multiple  defense — involving  self-confi- 
dence; an  unshakable  will  to  strike  back  if  need  he  when 
attacked;  and,  above  all,  a  personality  of  such  forceful 
security  that  no  wholesale  liberties  will  be  attempted  by 
anyone.  Coupled  with  this  fact  is  the  undeniable  proposi- 
tion that  anger  shatters  self-control.  Anger,  therefore, 
should  be  one  of  the  very  last  evidences  or  manifestations 
that  one  should  expect  to  see  as  an  accompaniment  of  cour- 
age. Plato 's  element  of  temperance  alone  would  reduce 
every  individuaPs  display  of  anger  to  the  lowest  possible 
minimum. 

Let  us  now  sum  up  the  contents  of  the  present  chapter. 
The  substance  of  what  has  been  said  is  this:  Courage  is 
the  cornerstone  of  harmony  in  any  mind.  Without  courage, 
there  can  be  no  mental  harmony,  regardless  of  how  much 
temperance  or  justice  there  may  be  present — for  courage 
is  our  foundation.    Biological  integrity  rests  squarely  on 


COURAGE   AND   COWARDICE  219 

the  bedrock  of  courage — mortised  of  course,  as  Plato  would 
have  it,  with  the  cement  of  temperance  and  justice — the  re- 
sulting complex  of  all  being  wisdom.^^^  Courage  spells 
strength.  Cowardice  spells  weakness.  Both  courage  and 
cowardice  are  made.  Literature  is  teeming  with  the  praise 
of  courage,  and  the  condemnation  of  cowardice.  Courage 
has  been  the  essential  substance  of  every  hero  that  has  ever 
lived.  No  human  trait  known  to  mankind  has  ever  been  so 
admired  and  so  extolled  as  courage.  No  feeling  is  more 
instinctive  or  universal  than  the  innate  desire  for,  and 
approbation  of,  courage.  As  an  element  of  mental  har- 
mony, it  is  defensive,  not  aggressive.  It  bears  no  relation 
to  anger,  insolence  or  bullying.  It  means  but  the  poise 
and  the  power  which  comes  from  inner  harmony.  It  is 
the  one  sure  guard  against  psychological  panic  and  bodily 
discomfort.  Its  price  is  low — merely  the  inalienable  right 
of  every  individual  to  a  sane  education — the  education  of 
Plato's  Republic  and  Plato's  Laws — that  education  which 
says  over  and  over  again :  Harmony  in  the  human  mind — 
and  the  first  note  of  all  in  that  harmony — courage. 

In  the  next  chapter  I  shall  deal  with  the  subject  of 
introversion,  or  that  mental  state  which  always  sets  in  where 
the  right  of  courage  has  been  denied. 

1^8  With  Plato  wisdom  is  a  fourth  element.  But  it  is  a  derivative 
element.  It  is  what  results  from  the  harmonious  adjustment  of  the 
mind  in  terms  of  his  three  other  elements,  courage,  justice  and  iem- 
perance.     See  Republic  and  Laws,  passim. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY 

INTROVERSION 

In  the  last  chapter  courage  was  dealt  with  specificly  as 
the  first  condition  of  mental  harmony.  In  the  present 
chapter  we  shall  consider  introversion,  or  that  state  of 
mind  which  always  takes  possession  of  the  individual  in 
whom  courage  has  been  destroyed.  In  particular,  the  in- 
verse relation  between  cowardice  and  expression  will  be 
shown.  It  is  largely  because  of  that  inverse  relation  that 
introversion  obtains  in  the  mental  world  today. 

As  previously  pointed  out,  it  is  impossible  for  one  to 
analyze  his  ideals  too  fully  or  too  minutely .^*^  An  un- 
analyzed  ideal  is  always  a  blind  ideal — and  blindness  always 
means  danger — for  blindness  and  ignorance  are  one.  There- 
fore, nothing  must  be  left  unsaid  or  undone,  which  might 
in  any  way  tend  to  hinder  or  hamper  the  fullest  possible 
development  of  courage  and  harmony  in  the  mind  of  the 
individual.  The  most  specific  directions  must  be  laid  down 
as  to  how  to  attain  courage — and  how  to  avoid  cowardice. 
In  the  absence  of  such  directions,  we  are  not  going  to  know 
when  the  laws  of  courage  building  are  being  violated.  Under 
such  circumstances,  many  things  are  going  to  take  place  that 
really  constitute  contributions  to  the  construction  of  cow- 
ardice, rather  than  of  courage.  Every  trail  and  every  gate 
that  we  know  anything  about  must  be  carefully,  jealously 
guarded — for,  we  are  dealing  with  the  plastic  mind  of 
childhood  and  youth — and  no  enemy  of  any  color  must  be 
permitted  to  pass.    No  slogan  could  possibly  be  better  here 


1^^  See  chapters  3  and  5,  where  the  danger  of  mere  generalizations 
la  touched  upon. 

220 


INTEOVEESION  221 

than  that  of  the  French  at  the  Marne — '^They  shall  not 
pass"! 

The  great  derivative  enemy  of  which  I  wish  to  speak 
in  this  chapter  is — introversioii.  By  introversion  I  mean 
the  mind's  turning  itself  inward  upon  itself  and  eating  it- 
self out — the  mind's  being  its  own  subject  and  its  own  object 
— the  mind's  chewing  up  its  own  content  and  working  it 
up  into  a  world  of  hiner  ivorry,  debate,  remorse,  anguish, 
disappointment,  melancholia — in  other  words:  a  general, 
all-around  pathological  introspection  superinduced  by  fear. 
Introversion  is  both  the  highway  and  the  goal  of  cowardice. 
It  is  one  of  the  broadest  of  all  avenues  leading  to  mental 
inharmony.  Introversion  diametrically  reverses  the  normal 
direction  of  the  human  mind. 

If  I  were  called  upon  to  name  the  first  law  of  the  Uni- 
verse I  would  unhesitatingly  answer:  Expression — or  an 
outward-going  process  of  energy.  All  the  Universe  ex- 
presses itself — in  an  external  way — ^by  a  giving-out  process. 
This  fact  is  manifest  everywhere  from  the  flower  that 
blooms  to  the  bird  that  sings.  Expression  is  the  one  eternal 
symphony  of  all  Nature.  From  the  lowest  organism  to  the 
most  refined,  there  is  everywhere  present  and  manifest 
the  great  infinite  urge  toward  expression.  Everything  in  the 
Universe  is  trying  to  translate  something  within  into  terms 
of  something  without.  No  organism  anywhere  in  all  Nature 
is  to  be  found  that  is  not  doing  its  utmost  to  express  itself. 
In  the  principle  of  expression  I  see  the  broad,  massive,  im- 
posing highway  leading  up  to  the  goal  of  all  growth.  Indeed 
if  I  view  life  aright,  then  expression  and  growth  are  one. 
All  organic  growth  must  be  nothing  more  or  less  than  the 
expression  or  unfoldment  of  energies  that  are  latent  and 
potential  within,  and  the  nature  of  which  energies  is  per- 
haps a  sort  of  clamoring  to  burst  forth,  due  to  what  we 
might  call  an  internal  pressure  of  some  kind.  Dreams,  for 
example,  are  one  sort  of  attempt  on  the  part  of  that  pres- 
sure to  release  itself.  While  the  dream  is  fundamentally 
the  result  of  a  repression  of  some  kind,  it  is  at  the  same 
time  a  channel  of  expression. 


222         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

Now,  introversion  is  a  process  which  would  reverse  this 
fundamental  order  of  the  Universe.  It  blocks  every  avenue 
of  outward  expression.  It  does  this  by  having  the  mind 
settle  down  within  its  own  precincts  and  ruminate  eternally 
on  its  own  contents.  The  only  expression  is  that  of  in- 
ward reflection  and  soliloquy.  It  is  living  in  an  esoteric 
world — a  hermit,  shut  up  within  one's  own  mind  as  in 
some  lost  or  hidden  cave.  Introversion  constitutes  a  com- 
plete violation  of  Nature 's  first  great  voice,  whose  constant 
call  is :  ' '  Out— out— out ! ' ' 

The  crime  of  introversion  is,  that  it  upsets  the  organized 
design  of  Nature.  It  is  an  anarchy  which  would  run  coun- 
ter to  the  sound  principles  to  which  creation  has  so  long 
given  sanction.  The  immediate  result  of  introversion  is 
that  of  excessive  internal  pressure.  Impression  demands 
outlet.  It  is  upon  that  fact  that  we  have  based  the  well 
known  principle  in  psychology — for  every  impression  an 
equal  expression.  If  that  outlet  is  not  granted,  then  that 
pressure  within  must  become  dangerously  abnormal.  That 
pressure  must  exert  itself  in  all  the  functionings  of  the 
mind,  and  indeed  in  all  the  physical  scaffoldings  of  the 
mind,  thus  involving  directly  the  entire  nervous  organiza- 
tion. This  undue  mental  pressure  must  in  its  turn  spell 
the  destruction  of  mental  poise,  balance,  or  equilibrium. 
Mental  riot  must  result.  The  mind  becomes  a  prison.  The 
impressions  within  it  are  prisoners — innocent  victims  of  a 
mind  that  has  turned  the  key  of  every  lock,  and  barred  the 
approach  of  every  gate.  With  every  added  impression, 
there  is  more  introversion,  till  all  in  all,  the  ideas  and  re- 
flections and  ramblings  in  the  mind  are  as  so  many  wild 
animals  in  a  cage,  each  straining  madly  to  get  out. 

Now,  the  outstanding  product  of  this  mental  tension  is 
what  I  term  self -consciousness.  Since  impressions  cannot 
be  crushed  into  nothingness,  then  they  must  have  their  un- 
escapable  effect  of  some  kind.  That  effect  is  always  self- 
consciousness — one  of  the  most  disastrous  states  into  which 
any  mind  can  possibly  fall.  Itself  a  product  of  repression 
and  resistance,  due  to  the  process  and  practice  of  intro- 


INTROVEESION  223 

version,  either  selected  or  enforced,  nothing  could  more 
completely  strangle  the  various  avenues  of  expression,  and 
the  essential  conditions  of  harmony,  than  self-consoious- 
ness.  It  is  the  hand-maiden  of  cowardice,  for  cowardice 
withdraws  from  the  world,  and  is  in  itself  a  process  of  in- 
troversion. Self-consciousness  is  also  deadly  in  that  at  the 
same  time  it  atrophies  every  instinct  to  participate  freely 
in  social  communion.  Any  organism  afflicted  with  self- 
consciousness  is  hand-cuffed  and  in  chains — for  great 
seemingness  colors  every  act. 

Psychical  activity,  if  its  way  is  barred  in  specific  normal 
directions,  will  always  divert  itself  into  whatever  channels 
it  can  find.  That  is  the  fundamental  proposition  that  con- 
fronts us.  If  expression  does  not  come  out  normally,  then 
it  will  go  in  and  torture  the  victim  in  a  thousand  untold 
ways — and  then  finally  come  out  and  advertise  the  fact  of 
its  abnormal  functioning  to  the  outer  world  in  the  form 
of  cowardioe,  self-consciousness,  unrest,  nervousness,  men- 
tal panic,  unnaturalness,  timidity,  bodily  disease — and 
every  other  symptom  of  psychic  discord.  The  outer  con- 
duct and  the  inner  purpose  are  hopelessly  apart.  Conduct 
becomes  a  lie,  for  the  false  director  at  the  wheel  is  self- 
consciousness,  making  impossible  any  real  parallelism  be- 
tween what  an  individual  says  and  does  on  the  one  hand 
and  what  he  feels  on  the  other.  Expression  becomes  stiff, 
stilted,  stifled.  The  individual  himself  becomes  a  living 
lie,  for  the  harmony  of  his  mind  is  destroyed.  The  un- 
natural rambling  about  and  clashing  of  thoughts  penned 
up  within  the  mind,  with  no  normal  avenue  of  escape,  is 
one  of  the  most  deadly  of  all  assassins  of  mental  harmony. 

Let  no  person  question  for  a  second  the  primary  nature 
of  expression,  not  only  as  an  instrument  and  synonym  of 
growth,  but  also  as  an  indispensable  safety  valve  to  guard 
against  the  utter  destruction  of  a  dangerous  inner  pressure. 
Expression  is  an  outlet,  and  that  too  for  a  good  and  con- 
structive purpose.  This  is  just  as  true  in  the  animal  world 
as  it  is  in  man.  Hall,  for  example,  has  said:  *' Caged  ani- 
mals terrified,  but  unable  to  fight  or  fly,  show  more  depleted 


224         THE  PURPOSE  or  EDUCATION 

brain  cells  than  those  that  can  react  normally To 

have  the  blood  flushed  with  secretions  from  the  thyroids, 
adrenals  and  liver,  to  have  it  charged  with  oxygen  and  at 
the  highest  pressure,  the  heart  throbbing,  respiration  rapid, 
and  yet  be  able  to  do  nothing  definite,  may  be  perilous,  and 
at  any  rate  wearing,  like  running  the  machinery  of  an  auto 
with  the  throttle  thrust  forward  "/^^ 

But  it  is  far  worse  than  that,  for  the  throttle  of  an  auto 
is  made  to  go  forward.  Introversion,  by  reversing  the 
whole  machinery  of  a  non-reversible  Nature,  is  not  only 
running  the  mind  under  full  steam — it  is  also  running  the 
mind  against  itself  with  no  normal  outlet.  It  is  more  like 
a  piece  of  machinery  beating  itself  into  wreckage,  with  no 
escape  for  any  of  the  products  of  friction  and  combustion, 
and  with  sand  and  gravel  and  broken  fragments  of  steel  in 
every  cog  of  every  gearing.  In  fact,  there  is  nothing  at  all 
comparable  in  the  mechanical  world  to  what  we  call  intro- 
version in  the  human  mind. 

But  let  us  ask  this  question :  What  is  the  cause  of  intro- 
version? How  does  it  come  that  minds  turn  themselves 
inward  in  a  state  of  hermitage,  rather  than  outward  in  a 
state  of  free  expression?  Why  don't  minds  give  outward 
what  is  within  them  as  naturally  as  a  flower  in  the  expres- 
sion of  its  color  and  its  perfume  to  the  outer  world  ? 

The  answer  is  this :  Introversion  is  7nade — ^not  born.  The 
natural  and  normal  tendency  of  every  mind  is  to  express 
itself  freely.  No  mind  of  itself  ever  resorts  to  introversion. 
Introversion  is  always  thrust  upon  the  mind  through  the 
channels  of  some  external  influence  strangling  expression. 
The  one  great  cause  of  introversion  is  repression.  The  mo- 
ment that  a  mind  cannot  express  itself,  then  it  is  inevitably 
compelled  to  turn  itself  inward  and  express  itself  to  itself, 
and  think  over  in  countless  forms  of  worry  and  reflection 
and  introspection  the  subject  matter  that  was  denied  a 
free  passport  to  the  outer  world.  If  expression  cannot  come 
out,  then  it  must  go  in.     That  is  what  repression  always 

150 G-.  Stanley  Hall:  Am.  Jn.  Psyeh.,  April,  1914,  vol.  xxv.,  page 
198. 


INTBOVEESION  225 

means — the  clamping  down  of  every  lid,  and  the  closing  of 
every  window  of  the  soul,  so  that  not  even  a  flutter  of  ex- 
pression can  manifest  itself.  In  proportion  to  the  degree 
of  course  that  repression  is  complete,  so  too  is  introversion 
complete.  Kepression  then  becomes  the  right  hand  tool 
of  cowardice — for  repression  means  introversion — and  in- 
troversion means  abnormal  mental  pressure — and  mental 
pressure  means  self-consciousness — and  self-consciousness 
means  self-condemnation— and  self-condemnation  means  cau- 
tion, hitching  hesitancy  and  the  destruction  of  all  poise — • 
and  all  of  that  is  cowardice. 

But  what  is  the  cause  of  repression?  The  answer  is 
this:  An  ignorant  world  clamping  the  brakes  of  its  iron 
hand  down  upon  the  wealth  of  expressive  instinct  within 
every  child — the  miserable  doctrine  in  part  that,  *' Children 
are  to  be  seen  and  not  heard".  The  shut  \ip  policy  toward 
childhood  is  one  of  the  taproots  of  all  repression  in  the  Uni- 
verse. The  parent  in  part  of  all  repression  is  the  fear  and 
keep  still  doctrine  which  is  imposed  upon  the  child.  Through 
numberless  avenues,  the  child  is  either  partly  or  completely 
blocked  in  expressing  itself — and  that  too  during  those 
very  years  when  all  the  formative  elements  of  expression 
are  the  most  plastic  and  the  most  promising. 

But  let  us  ask  another  question,  namely:  How  is  re- 
pression brought  about?  I  answer:  In  the  majority  of 
instances  the  child  is  taught  the  lesson  of  repression  through 
fear.  The  exercise  of  authority  compels  the  child  to  say 
nothing.  The  child  knows  better  than  to  express  itself. 
Thus  locked  up  in  a  world  of  silence  and  reflection,  there  is 
nothing  for  the  child  to  do  but  to  brood.  Since  the  great 
gift  of  expression  is  not  welcome,  but  met  with  storm  and 
frown  and  threat,  then  that  wonderful  instinct  and  inherit- 
ance must  isolate  itself  from  the  external  world,  and  ac- 
cept the  enforced  fate  of  a  sulking  hermitage  within  its  own 
sacred  dominions. 

But  it  is  not  always  necessarily  a  direct  fear  that  is 
the  weapon  employed  in  the  repression  of  childhood.  Very 
often  it  is  the  sense  of  self -superiority  projected  by  parents 

15 


226         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

and  teachers  and  adults  generally  toward  children.  If  a 
child  is  constantly  treated  with  contempt  and  neglect  and 
inattention,  and  made  to  feel  its  own  inferiority,  then  all 
the  conditions  for  repression  are  present.  This  process  of 
minimizing  childhood  may  occur  in  many  ways.  The  com- 
monest way  is  simply  to  neglect  the  child,  and  not  take  it 
in  as  a  full  partner  in  the  various  social  doings  of  the  home 
and  community  life.  To  proceed  as  if  the  child  were  noth- 
ing, and  to  show  it  no  co-operative  consideration — to  leave 
the  child  pretty  much  out  of  things  entirely — to  act  as 
though  there  were  nothing  of  less  consequence  than  a  child 
— that  tenor  of  behavior  is  immediately  sensed  by  the 
child ;  and,  accordingly,  it  effectually  discourages  childhood 
participation  and  expression — and  enforces  repression.  By 
degrees,  under  such  surroundings,  the  child  comes  to  the 
point  of  consciousness  that  it  feels  small,  shy,  bashful,  timid, 
backward,  inferior  and  insignificant.  The  child's  sense  of 
self -worth  is  dwarfed,  its  feeling  of  self-mastery  atrophied, 
its  right  of  self-confidence  destroyed.  It  is  convicted  in 
its  own  mind  of  being  a  non-entity,  wholly  inferior,  and 
wholly  unequal  to  any  occasion.  Its  instinct  of  dignity 
and  nobility  is  crushed.  Every  possible  energy  of  its  ex- 
pressive nature  falls  into  withered  disuse.  It  is  consigned 
to  the  seat  of  repression.  There  it  plays  its  part — and 
that  part  is  silence.  Henceforth  the  child's  world  is 
introversion. 

Then  closely  allied  to  the  above  method  of  making  in- 
troverts is  that  which  fails  to  invite  the  confidence  of  the 
child.  Expression  is  exactly  like  any  other  flower — it  can 
be  coaxed  and  cultivated — and  furthermore  no  flower  needs 
it  more.  Expression  demands  to  be  nurtured  and  encour- 
aged in  every  possible  way.  Confidence  is  one  of  the  most 
capital  of  all  ways  in  which  to  cultivate  expression,  and 
bring  it  to  its  highest  possible  development.  With  absolute 
confidence  present,  the  last  barrier  to  free  expression  is 
gone.  The  child  then  becomes  free  to  reveal  every  angle  of 
its  soul  to  those  who  may  be  in  charge.  In  the  absence  of 
the  freedom  which  can  come  only  through  that  confidence, 


INTEOVEESION  227 

the  child  must  harbor  in  silence  its  own  secret  world.  In 
that  case  the  numberless  things  that  should  be  revealed 
through  the  avenues  of  expression  shall  be  closeted  away  in 
the  mind  of  the  child  to  constitute  an  inferno  of 
introversion. 

Now,  the  destruction  of  confidence  may  be  caused  in  at 
least  two  ways.  In  the  first  place  the  whole  question  of 
confidence  may  passively  be  permitted  to  starve.  Those  in 
charge  of  the  child  may  assume  merely  a  negative  or  neutral 
attitude  toward  the  entire  field — and  confidence  soon  dies. 
Again,  confidence  may  be  crushed  outright.  Instead  of 
being  received  with  a  sj^mpathetic  ear,  the  child  that  would 
confide  may  be  sent  away  with  a  blow.  That  child  is  not 
going  to  return  many  times  to  give  expression  to  whatever 
may  be  on  its  mind.  Then  through  a  general  atmosphere 
of  omni-present  fear,  mental  stress,  hard  feelings,  hatred, 
resentment,  and  the  like,  obtaining  in  the  environment  of 
the  child,  no  whole-hearted  advance  toward  confidential  ex- 
pression is  ever  going  to  be  made.  Everything  under  such 
surroundings  will  be  at  arm's  length.  Confidence  will  be 
crucified  as  if  at  a  stake.  The  child  will  live  in  its  own 
secluded  world.  Expression  will  dangle  from  the  cross. 
Repression,  inhibition  and  resistance  will  be  everywhere. 
Introversion  shall  stand  as  a  monument  to  the  folly  and 
ruin  of  it  all. 

In  fact,  many  are  the  ways  in  which  introversion  is 
caused.  But  the  strangling  of  expression,  in  one  way  or 
another  is  the  cause  of  it  all.  It  is  all  repression  of  some 
kind.  That  repression  may  be  caused  through  the  fear  of 
authority,  through  the  feeling  of  an  imposed  sense  of  self- 
inferiority,  or  through  the  crushing  of  confidence — and  so 
on.  But  it  is  all  the  same  in  the  end.  It  all  leads  to  in- 
troversion. And  the  introverted  mind  is  always  synony- 
mous with  blasted  human  hopes  and  happiness.  Let  us 
see  more  specificly  why. 

"A  wish   earnestly  desired 
Produced  by  will,  and  nourished 


228         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

When  gradually  it  must  be  thwarted, 
Burrows  like  an  arrow  in  the  flesh"/^^ 

But  there  is  no  wish,  however  ''earnestly  desired"  that 
can  in  any  way  compare  with  the  fundamental  significance 
of  the  great  and  universal  desire  for  expression.  Thwart 
that  desire,  and  the  poisonous  pangs  of  introversion  burrow 
into  the  mind  as  no  arrow  could  ever  burrow  into  the  flesh. 
The  cult  of  Nature  is  the  cult  of  nakedness — openness, 
honesty,  sincerity.  But  the  cult  of  repression  breeds  every- 
thing that  means  just  the  opposite.  Every  piece  of  con- 
quered life  of  the  childish  soul  goes  into  the  construction 
of  a  temple  of  future  torment. 

When  truth  is  concealed,  he  who  conceals  is  a  victim. 
That  victim  always  suffers  in  silence.  In  a  very  fundamen- 
tal sense,  education  is  a  confession — a  giving  back  or  out 
to  the  world  the  infinity  of  impressions  that  are  within. 
Expression  is  the  sacred  instrument  through  which  that 
confession  is  made.  Nothing  was  ever  truer  than  that  * '  An 
open  confession  is  good  for  the  soul".  The  truth  of  the 
proposition  lies  in  the  primary  desire  and  demand  of  every 
organism  for  expression.  As  Emerson  has  said  in  his  essay 
on  Spiritual  Laws,  ''Nature  will  not  have  us  fret  or  fume". 
This  is  true  universally.  But  in  all  the  range  of  human 
experience,  there  is  positively  no  fretting  or  fuming  which 
is  so  destructive  as  that  which  is  born  of  a  blocked 
expression. 

What  is  needed  in  the  education  of  every  individual  is 
a  profound  and  perfect  harmony  of  the  heart.  I  tell  you 
this  in  confidence  and  sincerity.  What  our  education  must 
do  is  to  produce  a  sincere  and  simple  life  for  the  soul.  The 
demands  of  that  simplicity  and  sincerity  are  honesty — 
absolute  honesty — ^the  only  thinkable  basis  of  human  action. 
But  repression  gives  the  lie  to  all  Nature,  for  repression  is 
the  parent  of  self-consciousness,  which  in  turn  is  one  of  the 
master  builders  of  cowardice,  fraud  and  falsehood.  Therein 

151  Gautama  Buddha:  Speeches  of  G.  Buddha  by  K.  E.  ISTemnann, 
translated  from  German  colleotion  of  fragments  of  Suttanipato  of 
the  Pali-Kanon. 


INTEOVERSION  229 

lies  the  source  of  many  of  the  great  wounds  of  the  soul — 
and  the  centuries  have  done  nothing  to  heal  and  overcome 
them. 

In  his  essay  on  Self-Reliance,  Emerson  says  that,  **The 
centuries  are  conspirators  against  the  sanity  and  majesty  of 

the  human  soul Man  is  timid  and  apologetic 

He  is  no  longer  upright He  dares  not  say  I  think — 

I  am — but  quotes  some  saint  or  sage".  In  the  same  essay 
he  writes:  ''And  not  pinched  in  the  corner  like  cowards. 
....  But  man,  as  it  were,  is  clapped  into  jail  by  his  con- 
sciousness  Unaffected,    unbiased,    unbribable,    un- 

affrighted   innocence   must   always   be   formidable 

Nothing  is  at  last  sacred  but  the  integrity  of  our  own 
mind." 

Emerson  has  expressed  it  exactly — mankind  has  been 
*' pinched  in  the  corner  like  cowards".  No  phrase  could 
more  accurately  set  forth  the  picture  of  any  individual  who 
is  the  crouching,  helpless  victim  of  introversion.  Emerson 
perhaps  did  not  specificly  see  just  what  officer  ^s  club  it  is 
that  has  made  a  jail  for  man  out  of  his  own  consciousness, 
and  at  the  same  time  robbed  him  of  his  innocence.  It  is  the 
club  of  repression  operating  in  the  fist  of  fear,  which  like  a 
sledge  hammer  has  driven  expression  from  the  lips  of  the 
child,  and  then  sealed  those  lips  against  the  holiest  rights 
and  pleadings  of  the  human  soul. 

''Nothing  is  at  last  sacred  except  the  integrity  of  our 
own  mind. ' '  Plato  said  the  same  thing  in  different  words. 
What  a  crime  then  against  that  integrity  when  introversion 
is  permitted  to  step  into  the  mind !  Most  assuredly,  * '  The 
centuries  have  been  conspirators  against  the  sanity  and 
majesty  of  the  human  soul" — ^by  virtue  of  minimizing  the 
individual's  self -sense  of  dignity  and  nobility. 

Says  one  writer,  "It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  all 
the  important  errors  of  conduct,  all  the  burdens  of  men  or 
of  societies  are  caused  by  the  inadequacies  in  the  association 
of  the  primal  emotions  with  those  mental  powers  which 
have  been  so  rapidly  developed  in  mankind  ".^^^  If  this 
152  Prof.  N.  S  lialer :  The  Neighbors,  page  reference  lost. 


230  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

principle  be  truer  in  any  one  field  than  in  any  other,  then 
I  am  convinced  that  that  field  is  the  instinct  of  expression. 
Nowhere  has  the  inadequacy  been  so  great  as  the  failure  of 
civilization  to  comprehend  the  meaning  and  significance  of 
expression  as  a  basic  prerequisite  of  all  growth  and  happi- 
ness. It  is  of  course  true  that  our  penitentiaries  have 
learned  that  solitary  confinement  is  the  worst  of  all  forms 
of  punishment — but,  some  way,  civilization  at  large  has 
failed  to  recognize  that  introversion  inflicts  the  same  form 
of  punishment  permanently  upon  its  legions  of  victims 
everywhere.  The  cause  of  it  all  I  would  not  so  generously 
attribute  to  *' those  mental  powers  which  have  been  so 
rapidly  developed  in  mankind",  but  rather  to  the  opaque- 
ness of  education  concerning  the  simplest  demands  and 
tenets  of  the  human  mind. 

Now  in  the  blocking  of  expression  we  are  not  through 
with  the  game  at  all — ^by  no  means !  Let  no  repressive  hand 
flatter  itself  with  that  delusion  for  a  second.  Every  atom 
of  undue,  irrational  repression  must  bury  itself  in  the  mind 
of  the  victim.  The  great  cemetery  of  the  human  mind 
testifies  to  that  fact  most  abundantly.  For  every  degree  of 
crushed,  denied  and  inhibited  expression,  there  is  just  that 
much  of  undesirable  deposit  in  the  mind.  Some  of  that  de- 
posit is  conscious.  The  rest  of  it  is  sub-conscious.  But  it 
all  marks  death,  dross,  decay.  It  is  the  haunting  deposit 
of  a  series  of  tombs  and  tombstones  which  never  give  to 
the  afflicted  mind  a  moment  of  normal  rest. 

Our  word,  therefore,  is  deposits.  That  is  the  immediate 
product  of  repression.  The  mind  becomes  filled  up  and 
clogged  and  choked  with  things  that  do  not  belong  there — 
the  things  that  should  have  been  expressed.  Those  de- 
posits set  to  work — and  they  are  at  work  night  and  day, 
upsetting  the  normal  order  of  the  mind.  Everything  be- 
comes disturbance. 

And  let  it  be  emphasized  that  none  of  the  false  deposits 
of  the  mind  are  lost.  Expression  can  no  more  be  crushed 
into  an  ultimate  nothingness  than  can  the  simplest  bit  of 
physical  matter.     Crush  expression,  and  it  shall  turn  up 


INTROVEKSION  231 

again  somewhere  in  some  form.  The  desire  for  expression 
is  nothing  more  or  less  than  psychological  energy  of  some 
kind — and  as  such  that  desire  and  that  energy  must  con- 
form to  the  law  of  conservation  just  as  truly  as  in  the  case 
of  something  else.  Psychical  energy  must  be  just  as  eter- 
nally ineffacable  as  any  other  form  or  type  of  energy.  Often- 
times, apparently,  the  deposits  of  introversion  may  be  lost — 
but  that  is  simply  due  to  the  fact  that  perhaps  not  less  than 
95  per  cent  of  our  mental  world  is  sub-conscious.  What  is 
not  in  consciousness  we  think  does  not  exist,  because  we 
know  nothing  about  it. 

Hidden  psychic  influences  are  ever  at  work  in  the  sub- 
cellars  of  the  mind.  They  are  deposits,  either  good  or  bad. 
If  the  latter,  then  they  are  born  of  repression.  Those  de- 
posits are  largely  at  the  basis  of  many  of  the  world's  prob- 
lems, both  individual  and  social.  Man's  outward  life  is 
largely  influenced  by  events  of  the  moment.  But  the  great 
current  of  his  being — ^his  inner  life — is  determined  by  mem- 
ories of  the  past — and  alas,  far  too  often,  those  memories 
are  pathological.  They  are  pathological  for  the  reason  that 
they  have  gotten  into  the  mind  in  violation  of  every  law 
and  every  demand  of  mentality.  Those  memories  may  be 
vivid — or  they  may  hang  as  mute  harps  within  the  walls 
of  the  mind — but  it  is  all  the  same.  They  are  retrospective 
longings  which  crush — ^poisons  which  rob  Nature  of  its 
glamor  and  life  of  its  joy. 

It  is  ours  to  remember  that  Nature  while  lavishing  so 
many  beauties  on  the  outside,  has  bestowed  the  grand  and 
complex  secret  of  all  within.  The  most  thrilling  facts  of  all 
are  concealed,  as  if  swallowed  up  within  the  very  depths  of 
life  itself.  Such  a  matchless  gallery  as  the  delicate  and 
mysterious  architecture  of  the  human  mind  is  entitled  to 
all  the  refinement,  all  the  immaculate  smoothness,  all  the 
irreproachable  purity  of  an  inner  harmony  which  is  within 
the  gift  and  province  of  mankind  to  bestow.  But  judging 
from  the  indiscriminate  manner  in  which  education  has 
made  a  scrap  heap  of  the  human  mind  one  would  think  that 
civilization  has  regarded  the  mind  of  man  as  of  no  more 


232         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

consequence  than  some  old  junk  pile  on  a  vacant  lot.  Plu- 
tarch has  wisely  said  that,  ' '  If  Nature  be  not  improved  by 
instruction,  it  is  blind;  if  instruction  be  not  assisted  by 
Nature,  it  is  maimed;  and  if  exercise  fail  of  the  assistance 
of  both,  it  is  imperfect".  I  would  say  that  education  has 
miserably  failed  to  catch  the  voice  of  Nature  as  it  speaks 
from  the  inner  psychic  throne  of  man. 

Antisthenes  says  that,  *'Man  must  either  make  provi- 
sion of  sense  to  understand,  or  of  a  halter  to  hang  himself ' '. 
I  say  that  he  has  provided  the  halter — in  the  form  of  con- 
stant internecine  war  raging  in  the  mind.  No  halter  could 
be  more  effectual  than  that  when  it  comes  to  strangling  the 
highest  happiness  and  development  of  the  individual.  A 
most  striking  contrast  such  a  situation  is  alongside  the 
standard  laid  down  by  Seneca :  * '  The  mind  is  never  right 
but  when  it  is  at  peace  with  itself ' '.  It  is  the  philosophy  of 
Plato  over  again.  In  the  eyes  of  the  Earl  of  Sterling, 
* '  Modern  education  too  often  covers  the  fingers  with  rings, 
and  at  the  same  time  severs  the  sinews  at  the  wrists".  He 
perhaps  did  not  see  fully  that  the  sinews  of  man's  wrists 
are  in  his  mind.  There  is  where  all  the  real  severing  of 
life  is  done. 

The  most  dangerous  and  determined  enemies  in  any  field 
are  those  who  bring  in  the  Trojan  horse.  Civilization  has 
unloaded  its  Trojan  horse  in  the  mind  of  man  for  centuries 
— turning  loose  when  once  on  the  inside  so  many  mental 
warriors  and  raiding  outlaws,  all  gaining  possession  of  the 
psychic  estates  of  man  through  the  innocent  but  shallow 
bribe  of  a  few  superficial  bits  of  intellectual  knowledge.  It 
is  thus  the  stealthiness  of  the  anti-educational  process  which 
must  concern  us.  It  matters  not  how  many  cold  intellectual 
facts  of  school  subject  scholarship  a  child  may  be  appropri- 
ating, providing  the  mind  that  is  involved  is  at  the  same 
time  becoming  one  vast  vault  for  the  awful  inharmony  of 
those  deposits  which  proceed  from  fear,  repression  and  in- 
troversion. **Not  in  the  knowledge  of  things  without", 
says  Bulwer-Lytton,  ''but  in  the  perfection  of  the  soul 
within,  lies  the  empire  of  man  aspiring  to  be  more  than 


INTEOVEESION  233 

And  he  was  right.  But  I  would  amend  it  to  include 
also  the  being  as  much  as  a  man.  I  would  also  emphasize 
that  all  our  talk  about  the  human  soul  must  couple  itself 
inseparably  wdth  the  human  mind.  Whatever  the  soul  may 
be,  the  avenues  to  it  and  from  it,  must  be  psychic.  As  far, 
therefore,  as  the  present  knowledge  of  mankind  extends,  I 
would  say  that  ''the  perfection  of  the  soul"  can  mean  noth- 
ing more  to  us  than  the  existence  and  activity  of  harmony 
in  the  mind.  The  natural  state  of  man,  and  all  that  the 
perfection  of  the  soul  may  mean  is  well  voiced  by  Dryden 
when  he  sang: 

'Trom  harmony,  from  heavenly  harmony, 
This  universal  frame  began; 
From  harmony  to  harmony 
Through  all  the  compass  of  the  notes  it  ran, 
The  diapason  closing  full  in  man". 

In  the  above  words  Dryden  gives  a  true  picture  of  the 
rightful  inheritance  of  man.  Dryden  perhaps  did  not 
have  in  his  consciousness  the  fact  that  the  one  measure  of 
the  harmony  of  man  is  the  harmony  that  exists  in  his  mind. 
Nor  did  he  perhaps  have  specially  in  mind  the  fact  that 
human  happiness  and  mental  harmony  are  one.  Above  all, 
he  perhaps  did  not  entertain  any  specific  formula  of  pro- 
cedure in  the  building  of  human  happiness  and  harmony. 
The  real  formula  concerns  mentality.  Schopenhauer  spoke 
profoundly  when  he  said  that,  ' '  Happiness  is  really  but  the 
termination  of  unhappiness".  He  undoubtedly  did  not 
understand  the  import  of  his  own  words.  My  own  inter- 
pretation is,  that  the  roots  of  most  unhappiness  are  im- 
bedded in  the  abnormal  deposits  of  an  ill-developed  mind — 
and  accordingly  that  the  prerequisite  of  happiness  is  to 
block  the  avenues  of  entrance  to  the  mind  against  every  iota 
of  deposit  that  does  not  belong  there.  This  is  equivalent  to 
saying  that  the  way  to  lock  the  mind  up  against  foreign 
intrusion  is  to  open  it  up  to  the  communion  that  life  de- 
mands— throw  open  the  gateways  of  expression — in  other 
words,  get  rid  of  the  beast  of  introversion. 


234         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

I  say  heast!  Yes — and  I  speak  the  truth!  When  one 
thinks  of  the  great  range  of  human  maladies  dwelling  within 
the  human  mind,  it  should  jar  one  into  a  most  sober  and 
serious  reflection.  Aside  from  the  constant  toll  of  human 
misery  due  to  mental  inharmony,  we  are  confronted  with 
the  copious  catalogue  of  psychopathic  diseases — such  as 
delirium,  neurasthenia,  melancholia,  hypochondria,  brain- 
fag, general  nervousness,  hysteric  blindness,  hysterical  par- 
alysis, headaches,  spasms,  convulsions,  trophic  disorders,  illu- 
sions, delusions,  hallucinations,  nervous  prostration,  and 
certain  forms  of  epilepsy  and  insanity — and  so  on.  These 
diseases  are  a  part  of  the  price  that  mankind  is  paying  for 
the  purpose  of  wielding  its  w^hip  hand  of  fear  and  repres- 
sion— and  intellectuality.  I  of  course  know  that  it  has  been 
quite  fashionable  in  the  past — and  indeed  still  is — to  look 
upon  psychopathic  diseases  as  the  product  of  inheritance. 
But  let  us  listen  to  the  positive,  unqualified  expressions  of 
an  authority  on  this  subject : 

^'Psychopathic  diseases  are  not  hereditary — they  are 
acquired  characteristics.  There  is  nowadays  a  veritable 
craze  for  heredity  and  eugenics.  Biology  is  misconceived, 
misinterpreted  and  misapplied  to  social  problems,  and  to 
individual  needs  and  ailments.  Everything  is  ascribed  to 
heredity,  from  folly  and  crime  to  scratches  and  sneezes. 
The  goddess  Heredity  is  invoked  at  each  flea-bite — in  morsu 
pulicis  Deum  invocare All  nervous,  mental,  neuro- 
pathic and  psychopathic  maladies  are  supposed  to  be  a 

matter   of   heredity Such   is   the   doctrine   of  our 

medico-biological  sages The  practical  aspect  is  clear. 

Psychopathic  neurosis  in  its  two  varieties  is  not  hereditary, 
but  acquired.     We  should  not  shift  the  blame  on  grand 

parents It  is  about  time  to  face  the  truth  fairly  and 

squarely Neurosis  arises  within  the  life  cycle  of  the 

individual.  It  is  due  to  the  faulty  training  and  harmful 
experiences  of  early  child  life}^^.  .  .  =  We  must  look  to  the 
improvement  of  mental  hygienic  conditions  of  early  child- 
hood and  to  the  proper  education  of  the  individual 

153  The  italics  are  mine. 


INTROVEESION  235 

It  is  time  that  the  medical  and  teaching  professions  should 
realize  that  functional  neurosis  is  not  congenital,  not  inborn, 
not  hereditary,  hut  is  essentially  the  result  of  defective  edu- 
cation in  early  child  life''^^"^ 

Dr.  Sidis  shows  throughout  his  book  the  intimate  rela- 
tion between  fear  and  psychopathic  diseases.  Since  fear  is 
the  one  element  which  enters  very  largely  into  all  repres- 
sion and  introversion,  I  shall  quote  further : 

''The  main  source  of  psychopathic  diseases  is  the  fun- 
damental instinct  of  fear,  with  its  manifestations,  the  feel- 
ings of  anxiety  and  anguish All  taboos  of  primitive 

societies,  of  savages,  of  barbarians,  and  also  of  civilized  peo- 
ple take  their  origin,  according  to  recent  anthropological 
researches,  in  the  'perils  of  the  soul',  or  in  the  fear  of  im- 
pending evil.  As  the  great  anthropologist  Frazer  puts  it, 
'Men  are  undoubtedly  more  influenced  by  what  they  fear 
than  by  what  they  love' Superstitions,  and  espe- 
cially the  early  cultivation  of  religion,  w^ith  its  'fear  of  the 
Lord'  and  of  unknown  mysterious  agencies,  are  especially 
potent  in  the  development  of  the  instinct  of  fear.  Even  the 
early  cultivation  of  morality  and  conscientiousness  with 
their  fears  of  right  and  wrong,  often  causes  psychoneurotic 
states  later  in  life.  Religious,  social  and  moral  taboos  and 
superstitions,  associated  with  apprehension  of  threatening 
impending  evil,  based  on  fear  instinct,  form  the  germs  of 
psychopathic  affections  ".^^^ 

My  general  use  of  the  word  repression  includes  much 
referred  to  by  Dr.  Sidis  as  "taboos".  But  it  also  includes 
much  more,  namely,  the  suppression  of  the  child's  right 
to  normal  expression — not  on  account  of  any  technical 
tahoo  at  all,  but  simply  on  account  of  the  wholesale  igno- 
rance of  the  world  in  not  knowing  and  not  appreciating  the 
tragic  importance  of  expression  as  5  fundamental  life  builder. 
It  is  also  significant,  the  emphasis  that  Dr.  Sidis  places 


154  Boris  Sidis,  M.  D. :  Causation  and  Treatment  Psychopathic 
Diseases,  introduction,  passim;  but  especially  i.  and  iv.  to  x.  Italics 
mine. 

1"  Ibid.,  pages  33,  35,  37. 


236         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

upon  fear  of  some  kind  as  a  maker  of  psychopathic  diseases. 
In  all  probability  fear  is  never  to  be  separated  from 
repression  and  introversion,  and  consequently  from  psycho- 
pathic diseases. 

''Carlyle  laid  his  finger  upon  the  truth  when  he  said 
that  the  reason  why  the  pictures  of  the  past  were  always 
so  golden  in  tone,  so  delicate  in  outline,  was  because  the 
quality  of  fear  was  taken  from  them.  It  is  fear  of  w^hat 
may  be  and  what  must  be  that  overshadows  present  hap- 
piness; and  if  fear  is  taken  from  us  we  are  happy 

if  we  could  but  find  a  reason  for  the  mingling  of  fear  with 
our  lives,  we  should  have  gone  far  toward  solving  the  riddle 
of  the  world '  '.^^^  These  words,  which  were  written  by  a  well 
known  author  and  psychopathic  sufferer,  must  at  once  meet 
with  the  approbation  of  a  universal  mankind  which  suffers 
everywhere  in  silence. 

But  in  answer  to  this  writer  I  reply  that  the  **  reason 
for  the  mingling  of  fear  with  our  lives "  is  no  secret  to  me. 
I  know  very  well  what  the  answer  is.  It  is  as  follows: 
The  ignorance  of  civilization — in  particular  the  ignorance 
of  our  educational  and  religious  leaders — as  to  what  edu- 
cation should  consist  of.  As  far  as  our  civilization  is 
concerned,  and  as  far  as  the  full  and  complete  right  of 
anything  to  take  place  in  the  human  mind,  that  wants  to 
take  place  there,  why  there  simply  is  no  human  mind  at  all. 
Anything  can  happen  in  the  mind  of  man  that  wants  to. 
There  is  no  one  to  raise  a  single  finger  against  it.  In  fact, 
the  home,  the  school,  the  church  and  the  state  are  boosters 
in  the  process  of  destruction.  But  they  are  to  be  forgiven 
— for  in  the  language  of  the  past,  ''They  know  not  what 
they  do".  They  are  ignorant  of  the  psychic  world.  Con- 
sequently carte  blanche  is  the  wholesale  right  that  is  given 
to  them  to  do  whatever  they  will  with  their  Trojan  horse. 
And  thus  civilization  goes  on  from  age  to  age  with  its  fears, 
its  repressions,  its  taboos,  its  introversions,  its  psycho- 
pathic diseases.  What  a  monumental  piece  of  folly  it  all 
is! 

i^^rbid.,  page  48;  quotation  from  a  correspondent. 


INTEOVEESION  237 

But  all  of  the  fear  and  repression  and  introversion  of 
life  does  not  necessarily  begin  in  early  childhood.  There 
comes  the  age  of  puberty  and  adolescence — and  with  them 
sex,  the  most  fundamental  and  the  most  enduring  problem  of 
all  history.  Areal  and  serious  sex  problem  has  always  existed. 
Nor  is  the  problem  primarily  a  physical  one.  Indeed,  it 
is  fundamentally  a  mental  problem.  Thus  far  this  fact 
has  very  largely  been  overlooked.  The  problem  is  a  mental 
one  from  two  standpoints :  First,  the  mind  demands  sex  en- 
lightenment :  second,  it  demands  communion  and  expression 
thereon.  Civilization  has  thrown  a  wet  heavy  blanket  over 
both  propositions.  In  this  move,  it  has  simply  followed  the 
blind  and  superstitious  lead  of  savagery  and  barbarism. 
Ignorant  primitive  man  has  always  placed  a  taboo  on  sex 
light — and,  of  course,  like  a  flock  of  sheep  passing  through  a 
gate,  civilization — or  rather  semi-civilization — ^has  to  do  the 
same  thing.  The  total  result  has  been  to  throw  the  entire 
subject  of  sex  back  into  the  mind,  unexplained.  That  fact 
constitutes  one  of  the  very  largest  chapters  of  introversion 
in  the  history  of  mankind.  Under  those  circumstances  the 
mind  becomes  an  endless  field  of  sex  fears,  sex  worries, 
sex  anxiety,  sex  anguish,  sex  reflections,  sex  introspection — 
in  a  word,  sex  introversion  of  the  intensest  type. 

And  yet  civilization  would  go  on  with  its  repression — 
its  taboo  on  Nature 's  sacred  call  for  sex  light.  Any  attempt 
to  delineate  in  full  the  misery  of  mankind  due  to  sex  in- 
troversion operating  in  the  human  mind  would  be  to  exhaust 
the  languages  of  the  world.  Among  that  misery  is  to  be 
found  fear,  cowardice,  self-consciousness,  self-condemnation, 
mental  unrest,  and  all  the  range  of  psychopathic  diseases 
reaching  from  headache  to  insanity — to  say  nothing  of  the 
physical  misery  that  is  involved. 

Now  let  us  understand  clearly  once  more  that  when  we 
repress  any  issue  we  do  not  get  rid  of  that  issue  at  all. 
The  moment  that  we  repress  sex  enlightenment,  that  moment 
the  entire  question  of  sex  is  going  to  march  itself  straight 
back  into  the  very  depths  of  the  mind  in  the  form  of  raw 
material  for  introversion.     That  material  constitutes  just 


238         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

SO  much  abnormal  deposits — and  about  those  deposits  the 
mind  shall  revolve  in  solitary  contemplation.  Part  of  those 
deposits  remain  in  consciousness  v^here  they  act  as  a  base 
to  disturb  and  unbalance  life.  The  rest  of  such  sex  de- 
posits sink  into  the  depths  of  sub-consciousness,  v^^here  they 
repose  tranquilly,  but  actively.  There  they  operate  as  a 
constant  influence  in  all  the  doings  of  the  mind,  the  con- 
scious mind  included,  to  which  they  give  abnormal  feeling 
tones.  So  far  as  memory  and  consciousness  are  concerned, 
the  domains  of  a  poisoned  sub-conscious  are  passive  and 
quiescent — ^but  as  far  as  actual  mental  destruction  is  con- 
cerned, the  poisoned  sub-conscious  is  a  seething  turmoil  of 
unrest  and  pathological  activity. 

Among  other  things  then,  sex  introversion,  as  indeed  any 
other  introversion,  always  means  the  possession  of  great 
subjective  secrets — in  the  form  of  fears,  longings,  worries, 
wishes — all  the  result  of  suppression.  But  the  possession 
of  such  subjective  secrets  always  spells  disturbance — for 
the  subcellars  of  the  mind  are  always  lying  in  wait  either 
to  welcome  or  waylay.  The  ambush  of  sub-consciousness 
is  always  what  crushes  or  constructs  us.  It  is  never  any 
arrows  or  assistance  from  without. 

Our  fundamental  principle  is  this:  If  any  feeling  is 
not  expressed,  then  it  must  be  assimilated.  That  assim- 
ilated feeling,  if  it  should  have  been  expressed,  becomes  a 
poison  which  contaminates  and  throws  out  of  plumb  the 
normal  lineup  of  the  individual 's  psychic  organization.  Its 
action  in  the  mind  is  as  unwelcome  and  as  undesirable  and 
as  disastrous  as  so  much  sand  thrown  into  the  gearings  of 
a  delicately  balanced  machine.  The  products  of  such  as- 
similated or  unexpressed  feelings  manifest  themselves  in 
many  ways.  Much  of  the  world's  modesty  and  shame,  for 
example,  is  but  a  conglomerate  mixture  of  superconscious- 
ness  concerning  things  unduly  lodged  in  the  mind  on 
account  of  the  blocking  of  natural  channels  of  expression. 
Sex  introversion  and  fear  of  one  kind  or  another  constitute 
a  great  share  of  those  lodgements.  Their  deposits  pollute 
the  mind  at  every  turn.    A  spirit  of  false  modesty  and 


INTROVERSION  239 

false  shame  is  but  a  small  portion  of  their  products.  Shy- 
ness itself,  which  is  closely  related  to  fear,  is  largely  an 
emanation  from  a  bad  mental  state.  Secretiveness  is  also 
a  kind  of  dread.  It  is  another  overtone  which  always  goes 
with  a  repressed  mind.  Bashfulness  is  still  another  offshoot 
of  fear,  repression  and  introversion  of  some  kind.  All  three 
last  named  traits — ^shyness,  secretiveness  and  bashfulness — 
also  bespeak  in  the  victim  an  undue  respect  and  awe  for  the 
world.  The  reason  for  this  is,  that  all  fear,  repression  and 
introversion  combine  to  spell  self-depreciation  and  self- 
helittlement  on  the  part  of  the  victim.  By  inversion,  the 
world  becomes  magnified  in  that  degree,  but  at  an  alarming 
geometrical  rate — and  as  the  individual  magnifies  the  world, 
he  is  strangling  to  that  extent  the  biological  integrity  that 
rightfully  belongs  to  him. 

One  of  the  most  fundamental  problems  of  life  and  edu- 
cation, therefore,  is  how  to  free  the  inner  instinctive  mental 
energies  of  the  individual  into  the  best  channels  of  expres- 
sion. That  demand  is  absolutely  imperative— so  imperative 
that  every  possible  avenue  of  normal  expression  must  be 
aggressively  studied,  and  the  consequent  expression  of  the 
individual  aggressively  invited  and  aggressively  welcomed. 
There  must  be  nothing  at  all  passive  or  neutral  about  this 
proposition.  No  laissez  faire  policy  will  do  on  this  sacred 
ground.  The  rights  involved  are  too  imperious  to  tinker 
with.  And  yet  so  far  afield  has  civilization  been  that  its 
general  policy  has  been  one  of  repression — from  the  simplest 
fears  and  doubts  and  suspicions  and  worries  and  wishes  of 
childhood  to  a  complete  blanketing  of  the  sex  question. 
What  a  splendid  illustration  of  how  not  to  do  a  thing ! 

Civilization  must  learn  this  lesson :  The  way  to  get  things 
out  of  the  mind  is  to  let  them  come  out — and  not  drive  them 
back  in  and  then  attempt  to  seal  them  up  there.  The  very 
last  way  in  the  world,  for  example,  to  deal  with  any  fear 
in  the  mind  of  any  child,  is  to  leave  that  fear  in  the  mind 
by  ignoring  it — for  that  process  leaves  the  fear  there,  and 
thus  furnishes  so  much  more  material  for  introversion 
— aside  from  the  direct  fact  that  the  fear  in  itself  is  a  deadly 


240  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

thing.  The  mind  must  be  given  up  to  just  the  oppX)site — 
to  open  confession  and  free  expression  in  order  that  a 
rational  illumination  and  a  poised  mentality  may  result. 
To  attempt  to  forget  fears — that  is  to  desert  them  and  leave 
them  in  the  mind — that  is  disastrous.  Woe  unto  such  for- 
getting, for  it  prevents  the  seeking  of  an  antidote  against 
material  which  only  remains  to  contribute  to  the  general 
unreliability  of  the  mind. 

Nature  never  intended  any  organism  to  pasture  in  the 
greatness  or  the  littleness  of  its  own  thoughts.  To 
attempt  to  do  so  is  to  dam  up  the  flood  tides  of  expression. 
And  even  if  such  a  process  were  not  positively  destructive, 
why  should  it  be  resorted  to  anyway?  What  is  there  so 
shameful  in  any  of  the  great  Nature  secrets  of  the  soul? 
Why  must  civilization  surround  sex  with  silence  and  shame  ? 
Also — why  must  it  subject  the  process  and  function  of 
bodily  elimination  to  the  same  sickening  prudery?  Has 
it  come  that  mankind  is  ashamed  of  the  plan  of  Nature? 
May  heaven  banish  that  atmosphere ! 

In  the  process  of  life,  one  must  be  in  full  possession 
of  his  own  personality — nothing  more  or  less  than  the  very 
mental  harmony  of  Plato.  That  mental  balance  is  very 
largely  the  proper  equilibrium  between  the  conscious  and 
subconscious  content  of  the  mind.  It  is  therefore  of  the 
primest  importance  that  no  undesirable  deposits  lodge  them- 
selves in  either  the  conscious  or  the  subconscious  mind. 
If  this  principle  is  violated  we  then  have  deposits  breaking 
through  from  either  mind  into  the  other  and  destroying 
the  mental  balance.  That  principle  actually  is  violated 
in  legions  of  instances — ^under  the  very  name  of  a  pretended 
moral  environment  by  making  the  child  ioe  marks  and  as- 
similate models  that  never  should  obtain. 

Now,  since  the  individual  is  so  often  denied  the  adapta- 
tion of  his  personality  by  means  of  freely  expressed  feelings, 
then  the  individual  must  adapt  by  the  only  other  means  left 
— by  thought — by  the  sulking  soliloquy  of  solitude  and 
silence.  It  is  an  attempt  at  self-cure — self-satisfaction — a 
resort  to  subjectifying.    But  it  must  fail  utterly,  for  the 


INTRO^rERSION  241 

very  act  of  natural  adaptation  which  was  denied  through 
the  channels  of  expression  is  * '  The  stone  which  the  builders 
have  rejected" — and  it  now  becomes  the  keystone  of  the 
temple  of  mental  wreckage.  The  introspection  method  or 
attempt  at  self-cure  fails  disastrously — for  that  is  the  very 
method  which  kills.  That  method  is  a  catastrophe  just  in 
proportion  to  the  degree  that  it  is  resorted  to.  The  victim's 
chief  reward  for  his  pains  is  a  wrecked  nervous  organization 
along  physical  lines — and  a  mind  tortured  with  fears  and 
doubts  and  worries  along  psychic  lines. 

It  is  in  the  mind  of  such  an  individual  that  the  wildest 
and  most  sweeping  of  all  life  dramas  are  played.  Contrary 
to  common  notions,  life's  great  tragedies  are  never  played 
on  any  theatrical  stage.  They  are  played  in  the  tremendous 
arena  of  civil  contest  within  the  stageless  settings  of  the 
human  mind — in  the  heart  of  man  between  the  pivot  points 
of  the  two  minds  that  are  warring  with  each  other.  The 
fundamental  law  of  power  and  personality  is,  that  one  must 
not  be  making  war  on  himself.  One  must — ^without 
effort  of  any  kind  whatever — tolerate  himself.  To  do  this, 
one  must  liberate  the  psychic  energies  of  his  being  by  trans- 
lating them  into  positive  social  contributions  of  some  kind — 
for  if  those  energies  are  not  liberated,  then  they  shall  consti- 
tute a  state  of  siege  and  internecine  war.  That  inner  civil 
war  comprises  the  sum  and  substance  of  life's  real  tragedies 
— it  is  the  one  inferno  that  actually  lays  hold  of  its  victim. 

It  is  this  psychic  war  that  is  the  curse  of  the  world. 
Positively,  no  worse  plague  was  ever  known  to  mankind 
than  self -consciousness — no  scourge  more  terrible  than  self- 
condemnation.  The  one  always  begets  the  other.  The  latter 
is  a  pronounced  feeling  of  self -inferior  it  xj.  It  is  an  eternal 
auto-suggestion  of  one's  own  utter  insignificance — all  due 
to  the  deposits  of  fear,  repression  and  introversion  working 
destruction  in  the  precincts  of  the  mind.  When  the  human 
mind  comes  day  after  day  face  to  face  with  endless  collisions 
and  resistances  between  different  phases  of  its  own  self — 
and  that  is  exactly  what  introversion  always  means — ^then 
what  are  we  to  expect  but  cowardice  and  self-condemnation, 

16 


242  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

and  the  various  birds  of  a  feather  that  always  fly  with 
them? 

Now  on  the  entire  subject  of  introversion  we  are  led 
to  inquire  more  definitely :  What  is  to  be  done  in  a  con- 
structive way  ?  How  are  we  to  extract  the  poisonous  fangs 
of  introversion  from  the  mind  of  mankind?  In  what  way 
is  the  human  mind  to  be  redeemed  ? 

Everything  that  has  been  said  in  this  book  thus  far  is 
my  answer  to  that  question.  Drive  fear  from  the  world, 
and  destroy  all  undue  repression.  Then  introversion  must 
die  of  starvation — for  it  is  upon  the  deposits  of  fear  and 
repression  that  introversion  feeds.  Immediately — as  far 
as  our  present  chapter  is  concerned — the  watchword  of  the 
world  must  be  expression. 

Now,  in  the  direction  of  any  child,  two  things  are 
absolutely  necessary^ — intelligence  and  love — ^ninety-nine 
parts  of  the  former  to  one  of  the  latter — preferably  that 
than  the  reverse — assuming  that  nothing  is  fraught  with 
greater  possible  mischief  than  a  love  which  is  founded 
merely  on  good  intentions  minus  enlightenment.  Our  great 
demand  is  not  love  alone,  but  rather  an  accurate  knowledge 
as  to  just  what  we  are  about  at  every  turn  in  the  guidance 
of  childhood.  We  need  to  know  above  all  what  the  real 
demands  of  the  highest  life  attainments  actually  are.  That 
is  why  I  place  intelligence  first.  This  intelligence  must 
always  involve  a  sacred  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  the 
child  has  a  mind — that  something  is  constantly  going  on 
wdthin  that  mind — ^that  the  basis  of  all  education  must  be 
made  to  consist  of  harmony  in  that  same  mind— and  above 
all,  that  the  most  heinous  crime  ever  known  to  mankind  is 
the  planting  of  the  seeds  of  fear  in  the  mind  of  childhood. 
All  of  that  indicated  intelligence  must  be  involved — not 
merely  as  so  much  knoiun  data — ^but  as  moving  facts  and 
sacredly  felt  convictions.  I  would  here  suggest  that  the 
reader  turn  back  and  re-read  from  chapters  five  to  eleven 
inclusive,  in  order  that  the  contents  thereof  may  be  seen 
in  the  additional  light  of  having  a  direct  relation  to  the 
general  subject  of  repression  and  introversion. 


INTROVERSION  243 

In  addition,  I  desire  to  say  something  more  specific  on 
the  developement  of  expression,  both  in  the  home  and  in  the 
school. 

There  is  perhaps  no  deader  letter  anywhere  in  all 
education  than  that  well  known  psychological  common  place 
— ' '  For  every  impression  an  equal  expression. ' '  Education 
is  teeming  with  impression  elements — and  it  matters  not 
for  the  present  that  the  majority  of  those  impressions  are 
wrong — but  when  it  comes  to  expression  elements  education 
is  pretty  much  of  a  desert.  The  child  in  our  schools  is 
still  pretty  much  of  a  sphinx.  Education  today  lays  vastly 
too  much  emphasis  on  intellectual  impression,  and  vastly 
too  little  on  vocal  expression.  To  that  extent  our  schools 
are  manufacturing  mental  introverts.  It  is  of  course  true 
that  impression  is  of  the  most  sacred  importance  as  far  as 
the  fact  and  necessity  of  those  impressions  being  absolutely 
correct  is  concerned — but  aside  from  this  thought,  education 
is  entirely  too  much  obsessed  with  the  concept  that  edu- 
cation is  a  'Haking-in  process'',  I  insist  that  education  is 
more  primarily  a  ^'giving-out  process" — an  expression 
proposition — and  that  the  real  education  of  no  child  is  at 
all  to  be  measured  by  his  examination  marks  in  the  field 
of  intellectual  impression.  The  very  child  that  is  receiving 
marks  of  one  hundred  in  such  a  field  may  be  rapidly  de- 
veloping into  zero  in  the  great  field  of  courage,  vocal  ex- 
pression, poise,  self-mastery — and  all  other  elements  that  go 
to  make  up  mental  harmony.  If  the  school  only  knew  it,  its 
real  contribution  to  civilization  is  not  the  arithmetic  or  the 
grammar  that  it  teaches,  but  whatever  of  opportunity  it 
unconsciously  offers  to  the  child  in  the  way  of  expression 
and  contact  through  social  communion. 

I  say  frankly  that  there  is  too  much  deadly  silence  in 
the  schoolroom — too  much  fear-imposed  silence,  leading 
to  introversion  rather  than  to  industry — not  that  I  do  not 
believe  in  order  and  quietude,  for  I  do — but  that  the  pupil 
is  holding  forth  entirely  too  little  as  an  independent  agent 
in  the  field  of  vocal  expression.  My  insistence  is,  that 
expression  in  the   schoolroom   at   least  equal  impression 


244  THE  PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

therein.  There  must  be  maintained  at  all  times  harmony 
between  the  pupil's  intellectual  grasp  and  the  general  tone 
of  his  emotional  development.  The  latter  must  be  taken 
care  of  exclusively  in  two  ways:  First,  through  the  fear 
impressions  that  are  kept  out  of  the  mind;  and,  second, 
through  the  elements  of  expression  that  are  let  out  of  the 
mind.     Our  immediate  concern  is  of  course  with  the  latter. 

But  how  shall  the  expression  demands  of  growth  be 
catered  to  more  fully  in  the  schoolroom  ? 

I  answer,  fundamentally  in  two  ways — through  the 
recitation  and  through  the  platform.  To  both  of  these 
ends  the  educational  forces  must  have  ever  in  mind  the 
purpose  of  education.  That  purpose  as  I  have  laid  it 
down  is  biological  integrity.  But  we  are  apt  to  get  lost  if 
we  go  no  further  than  such  a  term.  Analysis  thereof  in 
the  past  chapters  has  led  to  the  elimination  of  fear — to 
the  development  of  courage — to  the  requirements  of  mental 
harmony — to  the  dangers  of  repression  and  introversion — 
and  at  the  same  time  to  the  place  of  expression  as  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  the  process  of  all  growth.  It  is  with  this 
same  expression  that  our  schools  come  into  the  closest  and 
most  persistent  touch.  Consequently,  were  I  asked  what  the 
purpose  of  education  is  as  far  as  the  dominating  element 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  teacher  is  concerned  immediately 
in  the  classroom,  I  should  reply:  The  development  of 
expression.  That  is,  I  would  intend  that  as  a  working 
slogan  for  the  teacher.  Back  of  all  that  I  would  of  course 
insist  that  every  teacher  have  ever  in  mind  the  principle  of 
biological  integrity  as  our  larger  purpose,  together  with 
everything  that  the  mental  harmony  of  Plato  stands  for. 
However,  as  an  immediate  classroom  guidance,  I  know  of 
nothing  that  should  be  more  indelibly  engraved  into  the 
consciousness  of  every  teacher  in  the  land  than  just  that: 
The  development  of  expression. 

In  the  pursuance  of  that  great  object,  I  regard  the  plat- 
form as  a  completely  overlooked  educational  factor  in  our 
schools.  In  every  school  I  would  make  platform  expres- 
sion intellectual  subject  number  one  in  the  curriculum, 


INTROVERSION  245 

Arithmetic  and  reading  and  writing — and  every  other  in- 
tellectual subject  known  to  education — would  have  to  be 
content  with  position  number  two.  The  lot  of  every  pupil 
would  be  regular,  required  and  systematic  platform  work, 
extending  from  the  first  day  of  the  kindergarten  to  the  last 
day  of  the  high  school.  My  aim  would  not  be  exclusively  or 
even  primarily  the  making  of  orators,  entertainers  or 
musicians,  but  as  Rousseau  might  say,  the  making  of  men 
and  women.  My  aim  would  be  to  make  courageous  charac- 
ters who  are  neither  afraid  of  their  own  shadows,  nor 
tongue-tied  with  the  ghosts  of  self -consciousness  and  self- 
condemnation.  I  would  make  men  and  women  who  would 
never  be  ''pinched  in  the  corner  like  cowards,"  as  Emerson 
has  said,  or  slink  away  behind  the  curtains  or  into  the 
shadows  to  ruminate  as  convicts  in  their  prisons  of 
introversion. 

As  far  as  all  regular  classroom  recitations  are  concerned, 
I  would  convert  them  into  the  nature  of  platform  activi- 
ties just  as  largely  as  possible.  I  would  think  of  the  pupil 
reciting  at  the  blackboard,  or  at  his  seat,  before  his  class- 
mates, as  one  holding  forth  in  some  contest  of  expression. 
If  a  pupil,  for  example,  were  explaining  some  problem  in 
arithmetic  at  the  blackboard,  I  should  regard  his  work  in 
arithmetic  as  secondary  in  value  to  his  experience  in  ex- 
pressing himself  before  his  mates,  and  his  ability  to  com- 
mand himself  in  the  face  of  any  questions  that  his  associates 
might  ask  him.  The  state  of  the  pupil's  mind,  as  evidenced 
by  his  conduct  and  expression,  would  mean  more  to  me 
than  his  arithmetic. 

As  a  teacher  I  would  keep  still — and  do  my  best  to  make 
a  Socratic  expert  of  every  pupil  in  the  field  of  questioning. 
During  recitation,  the  teacher  should  be  a  part  of  the  audi- 
ence. As  chairman  of  the  meeting,  the  teacher  should  never 
ask  a  question  that  pupils  should  ask  among  themselves.  The 
pupils  will,  of  course,  ask  now  and  then  many  foolish  ques- 
tions—but far  better  that  than  that  they  play  the  part  of 
dummies  in  the  making.  Our  immediate  aim  is  to  do  all  in 
our  power  to  head  off  repression  and  introversion.    It  is  not 


210  Tiii'i  iMnn'osi-:  of  kdik'ation 

«1;  all  to  iiiHisI  on  cillicr  wisdom  or  hiIphco.  No  folly  couUl 
be  jrrivHcr  jlinii  lo  ;isU  Tor  |)orr(»ction  from  \\w  hUwI. 

iiiil  llic  (Icimmd  I'oi'  cxprcsHioii  is  \',\\'  iikmh*  iiiipcrjiiivc 
ill  lli(»  li()iii(»,  (\s|)(M*i}iIl.v  (luriii|j:  lli()S(>  six  ycjirs  wlicii  llic 
school  (Iocs  not  coinc  into  coiitncl  vvilli  tiio  child  nl  nil.  in 
r.Mct,  Ihc  child's  |)I,mI  ronii  experience  shoiild  bcfjjin  in  the 
lioiiic.  The  riillcsl  iind  i'recsj  rijj;]its  of  coiivcM'sntion  siionld 
lie  }j;rnnled  lo  Ihe  child.  Uy  this  I  mean  invited  iind  cnlli- 
vjiled.  Tlu^  very  first  nMinirement  in  this  direction  is,  that 
1h(»  seeds  of  scMf-inferiority  iicvm't  he  plnnlc(l  in  the  mind  of 
the  child — for  no  siiifjjle  word  can  ever  he  spoken  j'i^ht  while 
the  mind  is  wron^.  T\\o  child  must  l)(»  a  complete  citizen 
of  th(»  home,  fr(M'  under  r(»asonal)l(»  f.,Mii(hniee  to  en^aj^e  in 
conversation  at  all  times.  When  tiie  child  talks,  it  must  be 
heard.  Its  trials,  its  troubles,  its  sorrows,  its  joys,  its  stories, 
its  (piestioniiifjs,  whatever  they  nmy  be,  must  be  listened  to. 
The  child  must  be  one  of  the  company  makiiifj:  up  Ihe  mem- 
bcrslii|>  (d'  the  home — and  made  to  fiM'l  fully  e(|ual  in  its  own 
itiiiid  to  anybody.  That  feeling  will,  of  course,  always  be 
jn-esenl,  providinjj:  nothing  is  (*ver  done  to  implant  the  op- 
j)osite  IVelin}.^  in  the  mind. 

Abov(»  all,  most  jirofound  must  be  llie  lable  communion. 
In  saying  this  I  am  not  writiny^  for  the  rich — or  any  class. 
I  am  writinjr  lor  every  class — for  all  the  people.  There  are 
fewer  opportunities  ricluM*  for  the  bnildinij:  of  expression 
than  tlu*  table,  whei'e  all  uuMiibers  nvo  in  association,  l^'rom 
the  very  start  the  cliild  must  participate  and  be  listened 
to  in  its  tni'ii — and  with  as  |)rofoun(l  a  respect  and  simMM'ity 
as  mi<i:ht  be  ])aid  to  tlie  most  distinguished  {j^uest.  A  mind 
is  b(Mn«j:  made  for  life — and  any  other  attitude  is  bound 
lo  spell  all  the  misery  and  unhai)pin(^ss  and  ineflicieney  that 
p:o  with  cowardice,  repression,  introversion,  scd f-conseious- 
ness  and  self condiMunat ion.  So  drastically  important  is  the 
principle  involv(Ml,  that  those  in  charge  of  children  in  the 
home  must  carefully  set*  to  it  that  lU)  child  is  <}:ettinj]:  lost 
at  the  table  in  the  direction  of  any  of  tbe  destructive  ele- 
ments just  irnnu^d — or  in  the  direction  of  any  other  ele- 
ments that  mijjfht   in  any  possible  way  tend  to  check  the 


INTROVEKSION  247 

attainment  of  our  great  educational  goal — biological 
integrity. 

Then  there  comes  the  question  of  a  larger  social  ex- 
perience in  the  home.  No  child  can  possibly  develop 
normally  who  is  robbed  of  the  opportunity  to  meet  and 
associate  with  people  from  the  outside.  If  friends,  neigh- 
bors, or  even  strangers,  come  to  the  home,  the  child  by 
degrees  must  meet  them  all.  While  grown  members  of 
the  home  are  being  introduced  in  a  formal  way,  so  also  must 
the  child  be  brought  to  the  front  and  introduced.  The 
child  must  be  freely  habituated  to  meeting  people — and 
being  at  home  and  at  ease  in  the  midst  of  them.  Under 
no  ordinary  circumstances  is  the  child  to  be  left  out.  To  do 
so  is  surely  bound  in  the  end  to  give  to  the  child  a  sense  of 
self-inferiority,  self-insignificance,  self-consciousness,  self- 
condemnation,  and  everything  else  that  goes  with  repression 
and  introversion.  Also  in  this  phase  of  social  home  life,  the 
child  must  be  granted  a  reasonable  opportunity  to  come 
right  out  in  the  center  of  the  ring  and  participate.  It 
will  not  do  at  all  to  have  the  chil.d  constantly  kept  in  the 
background,  *' pinched  in  the  comer  like  a  coward,"  re- 
gardless of  what  the  social  circumstances  may  be.  The 
child  must  have  the  right  to  talk  with  different  individual 
members  of  the  company,  or  even  to  command  the  attention 
of  all  members  with  its  stories  and  its  questionings.  The 
child,  in  terms  of  innate  self-respect,  must  be  made  a 
veritable  Jesus  in  miniature,  * 'sitting  among  the  doctors, 
listening  to  them  and  asking  them  questions ".^^^ 

Then  in  the  home  the  child  must  have  an  abundance  of 
its  own  social  affairs.  Nothing  is  more  capital  than  the 
birthday  party.  On  such  occasions,  the  child  holds  forth 
as  the  master  of  ceremonies.  Never  should  a  single  birth- 
day be  skipped.  If  a  social  experience  of  that  kind  is  kept 
up  for,  say,  twenty  years,  an  educational  value  has  been 
gained  that  could  not  well  he  overestimated.  The  whole 
process,  rightly  conducted  will  contribute  to  the  building 
of  poise  and  power  in  the  great  structure  of  harmonious 

157  The  Bible,  Luke  2:46. 


248         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

personality.  Nothing  could  more  effectively  cater  to  the 
development  of  a  free  and  easy  expression,  and  lend  to 
the  individual  an  ultimate  sense  of  courage  and  self- 
mastery.  The  child  that  misses  such  opportunities  is  as  a 
rule  more  apt  to  go  through  life  a  coward  with  a  tongue- 
tied  hitch  in  everything  that  he  says  and  does. 

Again,  we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  educational  values 
that  lie  outside  of  the  home.  The  child  that  never  gets 
out  of  its  own  home  for  the  purpose  of  mingling  with  the 
world,  and  seeing  how  people  do  things,  is  suffering  an 
incalculable  loss.  The  child  must  be  thoroughly  habituated 
to  the  world  in  order  that  it  may  never  be  nonplussed  or 
over-awed  by  the  world.  The  child 's  respect  for  the  power 
and  strength  of  the  world  must  never  be  too  great — in  the 
sense  that  his  own  feeling  of  self-respect  and  self-greatness 
is  diminished.  But  if  the  child  is  held  a  stranger  to  the 
world,  then  later  on  when  the  world  is  seen  for  the  first  time, 
the  child  is  doomed  to  stand  a  trembling  coward  in  its  pres- 
ence— completely  over-awed  at  everything  because  of  his 
great  strangeness  to  them — ^his  own  mind  obsessed  with  an 
ingrowing  sense  of  self -inferiority  which  he  simply  cannot 
shake  off. 

Therefore,  the  child  must  be  taken  out  to  witness  and  to 
take  part  in  the  various  activities  of  the  world.  If  the  child 
always  dines  at  home  exclusively,  for  example,  and  never 
is  taken  to  hotels  and  cafes  to  mingle  with  behavior  there, 
then  the  child  is  being  robbed  of  experiences  that  are 
fundamental  and  indispensable.  Let  the  child  be  taken 
then  occasionally  to  dining  rooms  outside  of  its  own 
immediate  home — and  to  as  many  different  dining  rooms 
as  possible.  The  child  must  also  be  brought  into  associa- 
tion with  groups  and  crowds  of  different  kinds,  such  as  in 
parks,  in  depots,  in  theatres,  in  lecture  halls,  in  churches — 
and  so  on.  But  in  the  latter  case,  care  must  be  taken  that 
the  child  is  not  adversely  influenced  by  the  atmosphere  of 
a  prolonged  and  mysterious  silence,  or  by  any  pronounce- 
ments that  might  be  beyond  or  antagonistic  to  child 
psychology. 


INTROVERSION  249 

In  case  that  the  child  lives  in  the  country,  then  no  more 
unnecessary  tragedy  could  perhaps  befall  it  than  to  be 
robbed  of  a  certain  amount  of  city  association.  If  the  regular 
duties  of  parents  do  not  take  them  to  the  city  often  enough, 
then  special  trips  must  be  made  for  the  specific  purpose 
of  giving  to  the  child  a  certain  acquaintance  with  city  ways. 
The  circus,  the  fair,  the  carnival,  and  other  special  day 
celebrations  are  all  thoroughly  worth  while  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  merely  to  enlarge  the  horizon  of  the  child.  No 
one  believes  more  thoroughly  than  I  do  in  rural  life  as  the 
best  possible  environment  for  the  raising  of  children — and 
yet  at  the  same  time  I  know  that  a  great  injustice  is 
enacted  whenever  any  child  is  tied  down  exclusively  to  the 
farm  one  year  after  another.  I  am  impelled  to  say  frankly 
to  parents:  Take  your  children  to  the  city  just  as  many 
times  each  year  as  possible.  "When  you  arrive  there  your 
children  will  act  with  that  degree  of  poise  and  naturalness 
to  which  they  have  been  accustomed  in  the  past.  But  the 
opportunity  is  yours  at  all  times  to  extend,  unknown  to 
them,  their  own  training.  Accept  that  opportunity  with- 
out exception.  When  the  hour  of  hunger  strikes,  go  with 
your  children  to  some  dining  room.  Do  not  make  the 
mistake  of  sneaking  off  into  some  back  alley  to  dine  on 
crackers  and  cheese  and  sardines — with  the  spirit  of  a  tramp 
or  a  beggar — but  get  in  line  with  successful,  people.  The 
fundamental  demand  here  is  not  at  all  to  save  a  few  dimes 
— but  to  give  to  your  children  such  a  large  and  wholesome 
social  experience  that  they  will  never  feel  like  hanging 
their  heads  in  the  presence  of  any  associations.  Bear  in 
mind  that  biological  integrity  is  never  going  to  obtain  just 
as  long  as  the  plane  of  childhood  action  is  to  be  *' pinched 
in  the  corner  like  cowards".  Let  no  parent  forget  that 
bedrock  fact  for  a  minute!  To  be  sure,  I  admit  that  no 
objective  conduct  is  ever  a  flawless  criterion  of  what  is  really 
happening  to  any  child;  one  must  look  into  the  heart— 
into  the  mind,  to  determine  that. 

Nevertheless  as  I  have  observed  country  life,  there  is 
permitted  to  be  so  much  ''commonness"  about  it — so  much 


250  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

"informality"  of  an  undesirable  order — so  many  '^ cheap'* 
models  of  behavior — ^so  much  imitative  material  that  is 
*' crude" — and  so  on — ^that  the  typical  child  as  a  rule  is 
permanently  dedicated  to  a  plane  of  mental  tone  that  does 
not  contribute  to  a  high  state  of  self-respect.  That  is, 
a  mental  ' '  cheapness ' '  is  far  too  often  the  inevitable  result. 
The  stage  of  psychic  action  is  pitched  too  low — so  low  that 
there  is  apt  to  be  a  feeling  of  self-depreciation  setting  in 
and  taking  possession  of  the  individual,  especially  when 
city  people  are  encountered.  There  is  very  likely  to  become 
deeply  ingrained  the  thought  and  feeling  of  city  superiority. 
The  child  thus  becomes  a  victim  of  self-depreciation — a 
state  or  condition  which  strangles  the  very  life  breath  out 
of  the  principle  of  biological  integrity.  Self-repression  sets 
in.  Introversion  follows.  Mental  harmony  is  by  degrees 
superseded  by  mental  discord — and  in  the  whole  process 
the  individual  is  being  groomed  and  trained  and  appren- 
ticed for  future  failure — ^because  I  say  once  more  for  the 
thousandth  time  that  the  one  exclusive  criterion  of  any 
individual  is  the  feeling  ione  of  his  mind.  Therefore,  I 
would  say  to  rural  parents,  and  to  all  parents :  Avoid  crude 
commonness  for  your  children  as  you  would  avoid  a  nest 
of  rattlesnakes. 

Similarly  I  would  say  to  parents  in  the  poorer  districts 
of  our  cities:  Your  commonness  is  destructive  to  your 
children,  in  that  it  is  building  up  within  them  small  con- 
ceptions of  self -power.  Every  rich  and  successful  and  well- 
dressed  person  that  passes  through  your  midst  is  a  king  or 
a  giant  in  the  eyes  of  your  children — and  accordingly  they 
themselves  become  pigmies  in  their  own  eyes — devoid  of 
self-respect — devoid  of  a  sense  of  self-equality — devoid  of 
a  feeling  of  self-mastery.  Children  raised  in  such  an 
atmosphere  are  thus  apt  to  be  doomed  in  advance  to  a 
state  of  inferiority.  In  that  way  caste  is  permanently  con- 
structed, each  succeeding  generation  being  almost  destined 
to  repeat  in  the  social  scale  the  generations  that  have 
preceded  them — and  the  whole  thing  a  wholesale  process 
of  human  belittlement — a  process  of  making  cowards  and 


INTROVERSION      -  251 

slaves  by  perpetuating  an  outrageously  unwholesome  stato 
of  mind.  With  the  majority  of  children  raised  in  such 
an  environment,  the  lot  is  one  of  social  repression  and 
social  introversion,  and  a  pronounced  self-consciousness  of 
inferiority  in  comparison  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Verily,  the  entire  process  is  one  of  pinching  humanity  in 
the  corner  like  cowards.  The  demands  of  course  under  such 
adverse  circumstances  are,  that  parents  be  familiar  with 
these  very  facts,  and  do  everything  within  human  power  to 
give  their  children  exactly  the  opposite  type  of  mental 
equipment — for  by  no  means  is  the  poverty  of  the  poorer 
sections  of  our  cities  the  real  tragedy ;  it  is  rather  the  psychic 
destruction  that  is  going  on  there  constantly.  Ragged  bodies 
and  empty  stomachs  are  only  the  objective  part  of  our  prob- 
lem. The  real  problem  itself  is  overwhelmingly  a  subjec- 
tive one.  It  must  be  met  fundamentally  by  recognizing  the 
psychic  elements  that  enter  into  it. 

Then  too  city  parents  in  general  have  this  fact  to  learn : 
Let  them  too  get  out  with  their  children,  giving  them 
every  opportunity  to  gain  a  participative  familiarity  with 
various  social  activities  outside  of  their  own  homes.  To 
remain  in  one's  own  home  constantly  is  apt  to  be  one  of  the 
most  anti-educational  of  all  processes.  Generally  speaking, 
it  is  almost  sure  to  be — for  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  end 
of  education  is  biological  integrity,  the  means  of  education 
is  social  relations  of  every  wholesome  kind.  Other  things 
being  equal,  the  more  group  relationship  entering  into  the 
child's  life,  the  better — for  those  relationships  are  ladders, 
all  of  which  we  are  constantly  and  consciously  directing 
toward  our  one  great  goal :  Harmony  in  the  human  mind. 
For  this  same  reason,  the  city  child  should  not  be  robbed 
of  its  right  of  a  certain  amount  of  association  with  country 
life.  The  more  bits  and  sections  of  life  the  child  can  become 
master  of,  the  better — for  to  that  thing  of  which  an  indi- 
vidual, in  terms  of  familiarity,  is  not  a  master,  he  is  apt  to 
be  a  slave — because,  as  a  rule,  for  a  person  not  to  be  ac- 
quainted with  things  means  that  when  he  finally  does  meet 
them  he  is  going  to  be  overcome  by  them.     Therefore,  let 


252  THE  PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

neither  the  country  parent  nor  the  city  parent  pursue  any 
course  of  conduct  in  the  direction  of  the  child  that  might 
in  any  particular  tend  toward  stagnation  of  the  child  mind 
because  of  a  circumscribing  of  social  opportunities. 

But  I  spoke  above  of  the  agency  of  love  as  an  essential 
in  the  guidance  of  all  childhood.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  love  is  the  most  magical  of  all  keys  in  turning  the  lock 
against  introversion.  Nothing  so  invites  expression,  sin- 
cerity and  confidence  as  does  love.  It  always  spells  freedom 
of  passports  between  parent  and  child.  Then  love  is  one 
of  the  great  guarantees  against  fear.  *' Perfect  love  casteth 
out  fear"  for  the  reason  that  love  is  a  mental  state  which 
means  in  itself  the  absence  of  fear.  Love  between  parent 
and  child,  for  example,  means  that  there  is  no  fear  ex- 
isting there  between  them.  Now  fear  is  the  very  thing  that 
we  want  to  get  rid  of — ^because  fear  always  means  friction, 
no  matter  what  home  it  may  be  in.  Friction,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  the  very  seeds  of  repression  and  introversion 
— for  wherever  friction  exists  there  one  is  sure  to  find 
enmity,  hatred,  anger,  secretiveness,  and  a  deplorable  lack 
of  wholesome  communion — and  those  conditions,  be  it  re- 
membered, are  exactly  the  ones  that  turn  minds  inward  to 
sulk  and  brood  and  worry — aU  of  which  is  repression  and 
introversion.  Love  is  therefore  a  most  marvelous  instru- 
ment in  the  building  of  mental  harmony, 

Where  love  is  established  in  the  home  as  the  instrument 
in  power,  all  is  strong,  solid,  fruitful.  Hitherto  love  has 
largely  been  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  a  crisis — a  drama  in 
one  act.  But  such  a  view  regards  love  in  by  far  its  least 
instructive  and  most  limited  phase — for  love  is  an  endless 
life  force.  Love  is  a  superhuman  word — in  reality,  divine. 
I  will  not  retract  it.  Love  creates  love  and  augments  it. 
Love — along  with  intelligence — is  the  method  which  leads 
to  the  attainment  of  the  mental  harmony  and  the  hiological 
integrity  for  which  I  have  everywhere  pleaded.  In  the  en- 
tire process,  I  say  that  the  art  of  love  is  needed.  Each  per- 
son must  institute  himself  the  child's  protector  against 
himself.    The  parent  in  spite  of  his  own  best  intentions  may 


INTEOVERSION  253 

oftentimes  actually  be  a  fear  object  in  the  mind  of  the  child 
by  virtue  of  an  undue  absence  of  the  spirit  of  love  obtaining 
between  them.  Whenever  that  is  the  case,  repression  and 
introversion  are  bound  to  result,  for  where  love  is  lacking, 
then  and  there  the  mental  enemies  of  the  human  mind  begin 
to  lay  siege — and  one  by  one  the  Trojan  horses  will  be 
brought  in. 

Love  is  a  flame,  a  fire,  a  desire.  It  is  a  heaven  to  be 
found  everywhere.  Mental  harmony  has  no  more  essential 
base  than  love.  The  cement  and  solvent  of  love  is  always 
needed,  no  matter  how  much  intelligence  otherwise  may  be 
involved.  Love  is  so  powerful  that  though  one  catches  a 
flash  of  it  by  its  reflection  alone,  it  sets  everything  on  fire. 
The  coldest  heart  is  warmed  thereby.  The  boundless  pride, 
the  sudden  joy,  the  violent  delight  that  spring  up  from  the 
presence  of  love,  animate  as  nothing  else  can.  The  great 
power  of  love  lies  in  the  matchless  harmony  that  it  creates. 
Love  helps  to  construct  the  very  state  for  which  Plato 
argued  and  reasoned  everywhere  in  both  Republic  and 
Laws :  Harmony  in  the  human  mind.  It  does  this  by  very 
materially  helping  to  banish  those  conditions  which  breed 
fear,  repression,  cowardice  and  introversion.  Love  invites 
freedom  and  ease  of  communion,  and  establishes  a  state  of 
equality  between  parent  and  child.  It  is  the  foundation  of 
confidence  and  the  superstructure  of  sincerity.  The  wise 
and  the  foolish  will  tell  you  this  and  that — but  I  tell  you 
frankly  that  the  whole  question  of  childhood  is  to  evoke  by 
wisdom  and  love.  Let  those  solemn  words  be  inscribed  in 
every  heart. 

Rousseau  himself  has  said :  * '  Childhood  is  to  be  loved.  .  .  . 
The  years  that  ought  to  be  bright  and  cheerful  are  passed 
in  tears  amid  punishments,  threats  and  slavery. ' '^^^  Pre- 
vious to  this  he  had  already  said  the  following  words: 
* '  Cruel  restraints,  both  physical  and  psychical,  have  an  evil 

influence  upon  temper  and  constitution The  first 

gifts  they  receive  from  you  are  chains,  the  first  treatment 
they  undergo  is  torment '  '.^^^ 

158  J.  J.  Eonsseau:  Emile,  page  42. 

159  Ibid.,  page  16. 


254  THE   PUEPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

I  am  not  sure  that  Kousseau  ever  analyzed  in  his  own 
mind  the  psychology  of  love  as  a  constructive  agency,  or  the 
significance  of  psychical  restraints  from  the  standpoint  of 
repression  and  introversion,  but  his  general  propositions  are 
eminently  correct.  If  there  is  to  be  psychic  harmony  in  the 
human  mind,  then  children  must  be  guided  by  the  sweet 
and  patient  instrument  of  love.  To  that  end,  conviction 
should  always  be  made  the  keynote  in  the  disciplining  of 
childhood  to  the  fullest  possible  extent — for  as  Mosso  has 
said;  ''Whatever  be  the  force  of  authority,  it  can  never 
compare  with  conviction  in  efficacy  ".^^° 

The  difficulty  with  any  discipline  of  authority  which  is 
divorced  from  love  and  conviction  is,  that  while  it  may  exact 
obedience,  it  may  be  doing  so  at  the  price  of  demoralizing 
the  mind  of  the  child — and  that  means  wrecking  the  future. 
The  great  desideratum  in  the  disciplining  of  childhood  is 
not  obedience,  regardless  of  how  that  obedience  is  obtained, 
but  discipline  in  conformity  with  the  best  demands  of  the 
biological  integrity  of  the  future  individual.  The  final 
product  of  our  discipline  must  be  matchless  mental  har- 
mony in  which  reposes  the  bedrock  of  courage,  self-mastery, 
naturalness,  and  a  perfected  ease  and  freedom  of  expres- 
sion. In  case  that  our  ultimate  product  is  a  poor,  trembling 
coward,  both  directed  and  betrayed  by  a  mind  engulfed  vnih. 
the  deadly  poisons  of  fear  and  introversion,  then  indeed  it 
would  be  far  better  that  that  kind  of  discipline  were  sunk 
into  the  bottom  of  the  sea. 

The  sum  total  of  our  discipline  and  our  guidance  of 
childhood  must  be  to  head  off  cowardice,  self-consciousness 
and  introversion  at  all  costs.  To  perform  that  task  may 
seem  a  humble  function.  But  I  want  to  assure  the  world 
that  nothing  is  holier.  Indeed,  the  world's  moral,  responsi- 
bility in  this  direction  is  much  greater  than  it  has  ever 
dreamed  thus  far — ^because  the  world  in  the  past  has  seen 
simply  a  physical  child,  without  either  seeing  or  dreaming 
of  the  tremendous  significance  of  the  mind  within.  Hitherto 
the  world  has  been  pitiably  blind  concerning  the  psychic 

leo^ngelo  Mosso:  Fear,  page  265. 


INTROVEESION  255 

anarchy  that  its  civilization  has  set  up  within  the  mind 
of  man. 

But  it  is  now  time  for  the  world  to  awaken  from  its  long 
sleep  of  ignorance — and  to  judge  all  of  our  educational 
endeavors  by  the  mind  deposits  that  the  individual  carries 
away  with  him.  We  must  see  that  introversion  is  a  deadly 
poison.  We  must  see  that  expression  is  the  first  law  of 
growth,  and  that  accordingly  anything  that  blocks  expres- 
sion is  not  to  be  tolerated.  We  must  see  that  undue  repres- 
sion fills  the  mind  up  with  poison  deposits,  and  that  those 
deposits  through  their  lodgement  therein  shatter  the  very 
mind  that  shelters  them.  We  must  see  that  the  deposits  in 
any  mind  constitute  what  one  might  call  the  permanent  cast 
of  that  mind.  All  opinions  and  all  attitudes  of  conduct  are 
ever  at  the  mercy  of  those  deposits,  regardless  of  whether 
they  are  in  the  conscious  mind  or  the  subconscious.  The 
life  line  of  any  individual  at  any  time  may  be  said  to  be 
exactly  the  composite  resultant  of  those  same  deposits,  oper- 
ating as  a  balance  between  the  two  subdivisions  of  the  mind. 
By  removing  repressions  and  the  fears  connected  therewith, 
by  means  of  resort  to  free  expression,  we  distinctly  prevent 
those  restrictions  and  those  inhibitions  which  interfere  with 
the  development  of  power  and  personality.  It  is  largely  the 
knowledge  of  this  fundamental  fact  that  makes  the  scien- 
tific direction  of  childhood  possible. 

Above  all,  let  us  not  underestimate  the  tremendous  prin- 
ciple with  which  we  are  here  dealing.  Introversion  is  an 
agency  which  is  undermining  the  health  and  sanity  of  the 
human  mind.  Its  inevitable  product  is  self-consciousness. 
It  in  turn  spells  self-condemnation — and  both  together  con- 
stitute two  of  the  greatest  curses  ever  visited  upon  civiliza- 
tion. Indeed,  in  a  certain  immediate  sense  I  might  be  per- 
mitted to  say  that  the  very  purpose  of  education  is  to  keep 
self-consciousness  out  of  the  human  mind.  The  way  to  do 
that  is  to  banish  fear  from  the  world,  and  then  never  to 
burden  the  mind  with  unexpressed  desires  and  wishes — and 
never  by  any  course  of  conduct  to  force  the  mind  to  harbor 
within  its  depths  any  secrets  or  any  series  of  secrets  which 


256  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

under  all  normal  conditions  it  would  speedily  give  up.  In 
other  words,  the  subject  matter  of  the  mind  must  not  be  in 
the  mind,  but  outside  of  the  mind.  That  simply  calls  for 
the  release  of  the  mind,  rather  than  for  the  storage  of  it. 
In  a  most  significant  sense,  expression  is  the  one  great  friend 
that  a  troubled  creation  can  call  its  own. 

The  instinctive  urge  of  expression  is  testified  to  by  a 
thousand  facts  in  daily  life.  Every  invention  ever  made  by 
man  spells  expression — every  piece  of  machinery  from  the 
simplest  to  the  most  complex.  Speech  itself,  which  was 
originally  but  a  system  of  emotional  sounds,  is  the  in- 
stinctive echo  of  expression  from  the  soul.  If  expression 
were  not  both  a  demand  and  a  command  of  creation,  there 
would  be  no  language  in  the  Universe  at  all.  But  in  con- 
trast to  such  a  state  of  void,  think  of  the  social  mediums  of 
expression  everywhere — the  press,  the  telephone,  the  tele- 
graph, the  mail  service :  All  bear  evidence  of  the  great  need 
of  expression — ^not  fundamentally  at  all  for  social  ends,  but 
for  basic,  biological  ends,  although  of  course  social  ends  are 
at  the  same  time  served.  Gossip  itself  is  one  of  the  best 
possible  evidences  of  the  instinctiveness  of  expression — and 
of  the  need  of  it.  Even  secrets  are  almost  impossible  to 
keep  for  the  same  reason — for  the  reason  that  expression  is 
the  law  of  Nature  everywhere.  Convicts  themselves,  as  a 
rule,  find  nothing  more  torturing  than  the  very  secrets  that 
they  would  try  to  dam  up  within  their  own  mental  haunts. 
For  this  reason  it  has  not  been  at  all  uncommon  for  unap- 
prehended criminals  voluntarily  to  *'give  themselves  up". 
Much  of  the  pain  and  poison  of  the  pangs  of  a  ''troubled 
conscience''  is  little  else  than  the  pressure  of  introversion 
in  a  troubled  mind. 

The  line  of  our  duty  should  therefore  be  clear:  Educa- 
tion must  not  deal  ex-officio  with  children.  They  must  be 
treated  as  responsible  beings,  in  that  they  are  the  infallible 
carriers  and  embodiments  of  Nature 's  instinctive  mandates. 
What  resistance,  I  ask,  can  possibly  be  offered  by  a  delicate 
personality  to  the  chains  of  an  imposed  ignorance  from 
without?    If  the  world  would  see  an  image  of  fear,  frank 


INTEOVEESION  257 

fear,  anxiety  and  anguish,  let  it  look  upon  either  childhood 
or  youth  during  those  awful  moments  when  silence  and  soli- 
tude are  sought  out  to  live  in  an  introverted  world,  because 
there  is  no  place  where  either  may  lay  its  head  and  tell  in 
confidence  and  love  the  secrets,  the  wishes,  the  desires  that 
Nature  is  so  ],oath  to  give  hermitage  in  the  human  soul.  If 
parents  could  see  the  fundamental  manner  in  which  they  are 
builders  of  life  psychology,  they  would  so  arm  themselves 
w^ith  the  compound  of  intelligence  and  love,  as  to  contribute 
no  more  to  the  morbidity  of  childhood  and  the  world.  In- 
stead of  crushing  expression  in  childhood,  they  would  invite 
it  and  cultivate  it  in  thousands  of  ways  that  can  never  be  writ- 
ten into  any  book.  Above  all,  the  mental  health  and  mental 
naturalness  of  children  and  all  mankind  absolutely  demand 
rational  light  on  the  bodily  processes  of  reproduction  and 
elimination.  To  forbid  light  on  these  functions  is  nothing 
short  of  mental  and  physical  calamity.  From  the  beginning 
of  time  the  sex  instinct  has  been  enshrined  in  love  in  terms 
of  art,  literature,  music,  drama.  Let  us  enshrine  it  in  our 
education  in  terms  of  the  light  that  every  mind  by  virtue  of 
Nature  demands. 

Finally,  I  warn  parents  and  others  against  the  great 
danger  of  showing  preferences  among  children.  Nothing 
in  all  the  world  will  make  certain  temperaments  turn  to 
introversion  more  quickly  than  just  that — for,  be  it  borne 
in  mind,  that  as  false  as  is  the  siren  of  introversion,  its 
call  has  a  charm  that  is  all  its  own — ^the  charm  of  holding 
out  a  self-cure  for  evils,  either  real  or  fancied,  and  the 
treacherous  feeling  that  in  the  subjectifying  process  a  satis- 
fying revenge  of  some  sort  or  other  is  being  worked  out. 
The  attempt,  therefore,  to  prevent  introversion  in  the  mind 
of  childhood  and  youth,  must  by  no  means  be  a  half-hearted, 
neutral  one.  It  must  be  a  positive,  aggressive,  sympathetic, 
intelligent  one.  Anything  that  tends  to  clamp  up  the 
mind,  and  lock  it  up  in  silence,  will  be  vigorously  avoided. 
On  account  of  this  fact,  the  very  shadows  of  fear  will  be 
banished.  Corporal  punishments  will  be  looked  upon  with 
the  most  tremendous  suspicion  as  being  fraught  with  great 

17 


258  THE   PURPOSE   OF   EDUCATION 

dangers  in  the  long  run — because  of  the  fact  that  such  pun- 
ishment is  ordinarily  an  introversion  breeder.  Friction  of 
all  kinds  in  every  home  will  be  reduced  to  the  lowest  pos- 
sible minimum — for,  I  say  solemnly,  show  me  a  home  where 
friction  is  the  rule  and  the  spirit,  and  I  will  point  out  to 
the  world  a  home  whose  children  are  almost  fatally  doomed 
to  small  things  in  life.  Friction  and  failure  ought  to  be 
accepted  as  synonymous  terms  in  every  home  in  the  land. 

Furthermore,  such  things  as  concealed  discord  in  the 
home  must  be  banished  from  the  environment  of  children 
— for,  as  far  as  children  are  concerned,  nothing  is  ever 
really  concealed.  The  mental  states  of  parents,  and  the 
mental  atmosphere  of  the  home,  find  their  way  into  the 
child  mind  in  a  most  positive  and  unmistakable  way.  The 
conscious  and  subconscious  states  of  children  thus  become 
in  this  way  exactly  what  the  general  atmosphere  of  the 
home  is.  For  this  reason,  just  as  the  parents  adapt  them- 
selves to  the  world,  so  too  does  the  child.  This  fact  is 
utterly  unescapable.  Never  was  there  a  photographic  plate 
so  sensitive  or  so  enduring  as  the  mind  of  childhood. 

Once  more  then,  the  interplay  of  deposits  between  the 
conscious  and  subconscious  minds  constitutes  the  very  arch- 
way of  the  individual.  The  interplay  of  deposits  estab- 
lishes the  feeling  tone  of  the  individual  in  every  case.  It 
is  on  the  basis  of  what  deposits  are  in  the  human  mind,  that 
we  must  revalue  all  human  conduct.  Accordingly  the  voice 
of  all  civilization  must  be  raised  against  fear  and  repres- 
sion, the  two  chief  springs  of  introversion  in  every  age. 
Self-consciousness  and  self-condemnation  must  be  seen  as 
two  of  the  most  terrible  scourges  ever  visited  upon  man- 
kind— and  that  both  of  those  afflictions  are  the  ever-present 
symptoms  of  introversion.  The  reversion  of  the  human 
mind  must  end.  Those  instruments  which  have  converted 
the  mind  of  man  into  an  inferno  of  nameless  and  eternal 
torment  must  be  driven  from  our  midst.  The  inquisition 
of  introversion  must  be  ended.  Mankind  must  no  longer 
be  ''pinched  in  the  corner  like  a  coward '^  A  part  of  that 
great  reform  will  rest  in  a  sane  recognition  of  the  fact  that. 


INTEOVERSION  259 

Nature's  first  great  law  of  growth  and  development  is 
expression}^^ 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  deal  with  the  subject  of 
Psychic  Be-education,  or  the  clothing  of  the  mind  anew. 

161  For  a  detailed  treatment  of  the  effects  of  repressed  wishes  and 
desires  in  childhood  and  youth,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  various 
works  by  Freud  and  Jung.  I  believe,  however,  that  these  authors 
have  made  a  mistake  in  tracing  so  much  of  their  philosophy  to  the 
repression  of  thoughts  concerning  sex  alone.  I  am  convinced  that 
the  most  prolific  source  of  introversion  is  fear.  It  has  done  more  to 
strangle  expression  than  everything  else  in  the  Universe. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 
BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY 
PSYCHIC  RE-EDUCATION 

Reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  my  educational  treatment 
thus  far  might  be  said  to  be  about  as  follows :  That  the  com- 
bined forces  of  civilization  have  ever  been  blind  to  the  fact 
that  man  has  a  mind ;  that  the  human  mind  has  accordingly- 
been  fed  on  the  wrong  kind  of  material  at  all  times;  that 
the  mind  of  man  is  therefore  in  a  state  of  psychic  chaos  and 
profound  psychic  unharmony;  and  finally  that  education 
has  been  tragicly  unconscious  of  the  fact  that  this  mentally 
abnormal  by-product  of  the  educational  processes  has  been 
more  stupendous  in  its  far  reaching  effects  than  has  their 
main  output.  The  question  then  becomes  this,  namely: 
What  is  the  minimum  requirement  necessary  in  the  way  of 
reform  and  revolution  in  order  to  make  education  right? 

This  question  has  been  quite  completely  answered  time 
and  time  again  in  the  preceding  chapters.  In  the  last 
chapter,  for  example,  it  was  pointed  out  that  no  education 
is  at  all  thinkable  where  introversion  exists — and  further- 
more that  the  only  way  to  eliminate  introversion,  is,  first 
to  drive  fear  from  the  world;  and,  second  to  honor  ex- 
pression as  Nature's  first  great  law  of  growth.  But  there 
is  still  at  least  one  more  thought  to  add  for  the  sake  of  sum- 
ming up  in  one  perfected  concept  the  substance  of  every- 
thing that  has  been  presented  thus  far  from  chapter  to 
chapter.  I  refer  to  the  subject  of  the  present  chapter — 
Psychic  Re-education. 

By  psychic  re-education  I  mean  a  refurnishing  of  the 
human  mind.  It  is  a  compl,ete  changing  of  the  individual 's 
habits  of  thoughts  concerning  himself  and  the  external 
world.     Civilization  must  clothe  the  mind  of  man  anew — 

260 


VSYCHIC  EE-EDUCATIOK  261 

because,  for  all  impaired  human  efficiency,  as  well  as  for  all 
of  life's  misery,  we  must  always  go  straight  to  the  psycho- 
logical.  The  real  battle  of  l,ife  is  not  in  the  words  of  the 
proverb — ''to  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door" — it  is  vastly 
deeper  than  that:  It  is  an  infinite  and  endless  struggle 
against  the  anarchy  and  unharmony  of  the  human  mind — 
against  the  inner  torture  of  the  ghosts  and  hobgoblins  of 
haunting  fears.  The  only  hope  of  deliverance  from  that 
bondage  is  a  sweeping  psychic  housecleaning.  That  is 
what  I  mean  by  psychic  re-education. 

The  crying  need  of  the  hour — what  is  it  ?  Self-control — 
positively!  But  self-mastery  today  lies  weeping  at  the 
fountain — because  civilization  has  unconsciously  been  doing 
a  great  negative  injustice  to  her  pupils:  Endowing  them 
with  cowardice.  As  educational  forces,  the  home,  the  school, 
the  church  and  the  State  have  all  had  their  respective  hands 
in  that  process.  The  mistake,  like  most  mistakes,  has  been 
one  born,  not  of  intent,  but  of — ignorance.  Hitherto  the 
world  has  simply  not  understood  the  true  standard  of  hu- 
man value.  It  has  not  seen  that  the  real  standard  of  edu- 
cational value  is  what  is  actually  happening  to  the  pupil 
on  the  inside  of  his  mind.  The  world  has  been  thinking 
right  along  that  the  criterion  of  education  is  the  degree  of 
favorableness  with  which  certain  ponderous  statistical  tabu^ 
lations  concerning  attendance  and  promotion  reflect  back 
upon  the  school — or  the  rapidity  and  the  accuracy  with 
which  numberless  intellectual  facts  have  been  fed  into  the 
mind  of  the  child.  The  constant  emotional  deposits  which 
have  endlessly  found  their  way  into  the  human  mind,  thus 
completely  establishing  the  feeling  tone  of  the  individual 
— those  deposits  have  never  constituted  any  criterion  of 
the  world's  education,  for  the  reason  that  the  world  has 
been  blinded  by  its  social  goggles. 

This  fact  is  evidenced  by  the  finished  products  of  our 
education — and  by  the  failure  of  educational  literature 
everywhere  to  strike  deeply.  One  writer,  for  example,  has 
this  to  say:  ''The  complex  process  through  which  the  child 
passes  in  reaching  full  development  and  maturity  forms  one 


262         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

harmonious,  consistent  and  beautiful  whole '  '.^^^  From  the 
standpoint  of  Nature's  organic  plan,  that  is  entirely  cor- 
rect. But  when  we  consider  what  an  abominable  jumble 
society  makes  of  the  psychic  side  of  that  same  child,  the 
hideous  fact  of  the  matter  is,  that  the  ''harmonious,  con- 
sistent and  beautiful  whole"  of  which  Putnam  speaks  does 
not  materialize  at  all — for  no  organism  can  be  either  "har- 
monious''— ''consistent" — or  "beautiful"  where  its  mind 
is  wrong.  Putnam  made  the  mistake  of  getting  Nature's 
wonderful  design  mixed  up  with  what  a  false  education 
actually  does.  Education  must  take  unto  itself  no  credit 
whatever  for  Nature's  raw  material.  The  only  thing  of 
which  education  is  entitled  to  boast  is  what  she  finally  does 
with  the  material  and  designs  that  Nature  places  in  her 
hands.  This  fact  has  been  overlooked  generally  by  the 
educational  world. 

A  somewhat  related  fact  that  has  been  missed  by  edu- 
cation is  brought  to  mind  by  the  following  words:  "Many 
years  ago,  on  being  asked  for  a  definition  of  education  I 
described  it  as  the  process  by  which  the  individual  is  ele- 
vated into  the  species I  set  a  very  high  value  on  the 

accumulated  wisdom  of  the  race".^^^  My  objection  to  this 
statement  is,  that  I  personally  entertain  a  far  greater  con- 
cern for  the  "accumulated"  ignorance  of  the  race.  It  has 
been  amazing  to  me  that  educators  can  talk  with  such 
equanimity  of  the  child's  social  inheritance  in  terms  of 
"accumulated  wisdom" — and  yet  never  utter  one  syllable 
about  our  "accumulated"  ignorance,  when  the  latter  out- 
weighs the  former,  in  my  opinion,  as  a  mountain  a  mole- 
hill. Talk  about  "accumulated  wisdom"!  Let  us  no 
longer  labor  under  that  delusion — that  our  social  accumula- 
tions from  the  ages  are  wisdom,  and  wisdom  only!  Let 
us  rather  get  conscious  of  the  fact  that  our  accumulations 
are  teeming  with  ignorance  everywhere — an  ignorance  that 
must  be  guarded  against  on  every  hand — and  that  we  must 


162  Putnam :  Manual  of  Pedagogics,  page  23.    The  italics  are  mine. 

163  w.  T.  Harris  in  Lang:   Educational  Creeds  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  pages  36-7.    The  italics  are  mine. 


PSYCHIC   RE-EDUCATION  263 

be  scrupulously  careful  what  ''accumulated  wisdom" 
it  is  that  we  pass  on  to  the  individual  in  the  process  of 
' '  elevating  him  into  the  species ' '. 

The  race  has  no  right  to  impose  any  of  its  acciimulatiotis, 
per  se,  upon  any  individual.  The  whole  question  must  be 
determined  by  the  truth  of  those  accumulations — that  is, 
their  actual  food  val.ue  to  the  individual  in  the  process  of 
the  making.  Anything  which  looks  like  food,  but  which  is 
in  reality  poison,  must  be  cast  out  and  away.  And,  in  this 
respect — what  is  poison?  I  answer:  Fundamentally  any- 
thing which  finally  sets  the  individual  adrift  with  a  dis- 
cordant, unbalanced  mind.  In  proportion  to  the  degree 
that  the  human  mind  is  not  right,  then  the  "accumulated 
wisdom"  of  the  race  is  only  accumulated  ignorance — and 
nothing  under  all  heaven  can  make  it  anything  else.  The 
ultimate  stuff  of  the  mind  must  be  our  criterion. 

It  has  been  said  that, ' '  The  Olympic  dust  was  the  richest 
treasure  which  a  young  Greek  could  gather  on  his  brow"/^* 
There  is  likewise  a  one  richest  treasure  which  education 
can  bestow  on  the  brow  of  every  individual  within  her 
arenas.  It  is  that  self -poise  and  that  self-power  which  are 
the  matchless  and  enduring  wreaths  of  psychic  harmony. 
Kant,  who  is  our  modern  Socrates,  had  a  vision  of  this 
great  psychic  garland  when  he  said:  ''Let  each  soul  build 
up  within  itself  a  coherent  and  rational  world,  so  that  it 
can  lead  a  free,  moral,  natural  life  in  the  society  of  others". 
Socrates  adopted  the  old  Delphic  oracle — Knoio  Thyself. 
That  oracle  can  mean  but  one  thing :  Biological  integrity — 
a  harmonized  mind. 

But  in  so  far  as  we  lose  sight  of  the  human  or  biological 
aim  for  the  social  or  national  aim  we  err — and  our 
education  degenerates.  We  err  and  degenerate  because  we 
miss  the  colossal  and  indispensable  mark  of  principle.  A 
sure  symptom  of  that  erring  is  endless  controversy  and  per- 
petual unrest.  We  may  always  be  sure  that  some  great 
underlying  principle  is  being  lost  sight  of  where  a  thou- 

164  S.  S.  Laurie :  Historical  Survey  Pre-Christian  Education,  page 
213. 


264         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

sand  and  one  conflicting  opinions  and  doctrines  hold  the 
attention  of  the  world.  The  reason  for  this  is,  that  Nature 
eternally  refuses  to  become  a  party  to  any  process  that 
would  attempt  to  salve  over  even  the  smallest  iota  of 
underlying  error. 

Educators,  for  example,  have  been  quarreling  for  many 
a  day  whether  it  should  be  science,  classics  or  mathematics. 
Mill,  Newman  and  Gladstone  were  strong  for  the  classics. 
They  said  that  they  are  necessary  for  culture.  Locke,  Car- 
lyle  and  Spencer  considered  the  classics  not  only  as  a  waste 
of  time,  but  also  a  hindrance  to  soul  growth — and  so  on, 
with  no  end  of  controversy.  Similar  conditions  have  always 
prevailed.  In  his  own  day,  Aristotle  summed  up  the  mat- 
ter as  follows :  *  *  For  mankind  are  by  no  means  agreed  about 
the  things  to  be  taught,  whether  we  look  to  virtue  or  the 
best  life.  Neither  is  it  clear  whether  education  is  more 
concerned  with  intellectual  or  moral  virtue.  The  existing 
practice  is  perplexing ;  no  one  knows  on  what  principle  we 
should  proceed — should  the  useful  in  life,  or  should  virtue, 
or  should  the  higher  knowledge,  be  the  aim  of  our  train- 
ing?   All  three  opinions  have  been  entertained  ".^^^ 

I  say  that  the  quarrels  of  education  are  due  to  the  fact 
that  all  of  the  parties  to  the  controversy  have  missed  the 
gigantic  principle  for  which  Plato  pleaded — harmony 
within  the  human  mind — and  that  it  is  not  classics  or 
mathematics  or  science  or  anything  else  where  the  shoe 
pinches  at  all.  The  real  tack  in  the  shoe  is  not  any  of  these 
things.  It  is  the  mind  itself  where  things  are  wrong.  In 
my  opinion,  it  makes  no  difference  whatever  what  it  is  that 
any  individual  studies,  primarily.  The  thing,  however,  that 
does  make  a  very  great  difference  is  what  is  happening 
to  the  individual  from  day  to  day  and  year  to  year  on  the 
inside  of  his  own  mind.  That  is  why  I  go  so  far  as  to 
say  that  it  is  practically  immaterial  what  a  person  studies. 
The  big  issue  simply  does  not  lie  in  the  field  of  what  one 
studies  at  all.  It  lies  in  that  other  field — that  field  to  which 
I  have  been  referring  over  and  over  again  with  an  almost 

185  Aristotle:  Politics,  Jowett's  translation,  page  301. 


PSYCHIC  RE-EDUCATION  265 

monotonous  regularity  and  emphasis — the  field  of  psychic 
harmony :  The  biological  integrity  of  the  individual. 

It  is  the  very  first  and  very  last  function  of  education 
so  to  train  the  individual  that  he  may  have  the  highest 
possible  degree  of  psychic  poise.  This  poise  or  harmony 
is  the  one  great  bed-rock  condition  of  aU  individual  devel- 
opment, evolution  and  attainment.  It  is  furthermore  two- 
fold in  its  nature.  It  involves,  first  a  harmony  within  the 
mental  faculties  themselves;  and  second  a  harmony  with 
one's  mental  environment.  But  the  former  is  by  far  the 
more  important  of  the  two — for  it  is  the  end.  The  latter 
is  only  a  means — ^yet  a  very  important  one,  since  it  caters 
to  the  first.  The  awful  tragedy  has  been  that  education 
at  its  very  best  has  never  gotten  beyond  the  single  concept 
of  external  adjustment. 

The  great  desideratum  in  education  is  what  Rousseau 
partly  sees,  but  which  he  does  not  fully  develop,  when  he 
speaks  the  following  words :  "In  the  natural  order  of  things, 
the  vocation  common  to  all  is  the  state  of  manhood;  and 
whoever  is  well  trained  for  that,  cannot  badly  fulfill  any 
vocation  which  depends  upon  it.  Whether  my  pupil  be 
destined  for  the  army,  the  church,  or  the  bar,  matters  little 
to  me.  Before  he  can  think  of  adopting  the  vocation  of  his 
parents,  Nature  calls  upon  him  to  be  a  man.  How  to  live  is 
the  business  I  wish  to  teach  him.  On  leaving  my  hands,  he 
will  not,  I  admit,  be  a  magistrate,  a  soldier,  or  a  priest; 
first  of  all  he  will  be  a  man.  All  that  a  man  ought  to  be 
he  can  be,  at  need,  as  well  as  any  one  else  can.  Fortune 
will  in  vain  alter  his  position,  for  he  will  occupy  his  own. 
Our  real  study  is  that  of  the  state  of  man.  We  must  take 
a  broader  view  of  things  and  consider  man  in  the 
abstract  ".^'^ 

For  ''the  state  of  manhood"  used  by  Rousseau  I  would 
substitute  the  term,  the  state  of  psychic  soundness.  I  would 
do  that  for  the  sake  of  making  it  unmistakably  clear  what  it 
is,  in  my  opinion,  that  *'the  state  of  manhood"  consists  of — 
and  also  for  the  sake  of  focusing  the  attention  of  educa- 
166  J,  J.  Rousseau:  Emile,  pages  13-14. 


266         THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

tional  consciousness  still  further  upon  the  one  constant 
theme  of  the  present  book.  I  of  course  do  not  know  just 
what  Rousseau  meant  by  ''manhood  in  the  abstract" — 
but  I  believe  that  he  held  in  his  perceptions  many  of  the 
very  things  that  I  have  been  analyzing.  I  am  positive  that 
before  any  individual  becomes  a  priest,  a  magistrate,  or  a 
soldier — or  anything  else — he  should  first  be  sound  and 
harmonic  in  his  mental  organization.  As  Rousseau  said, 
he  must  be  a  man — not  a  coward.  He  must  be  the  complete 
embodiment  of  biological  integrity.  With  that  foundation, 
indeed  ''Fortune  will  in  vain  alter  his  position".  Rous- 
seau was  right. 

Long  ago  it  was  said  that  a  house  divided  against  itself 
cannot  stand.^^^  The  reason  is,  that  a  house  so  constituted 
rests  upon  the  purest  sand  foundation  of  them  all — and  in 
the  very  path  of  the  most  dangerous  breakers.  If  this  be 
so,  how  then  can  a  living  human  being  whose  nature  is  out 
of  self -balance  expect  to  be  able  to  stand?  When  the  mind 
of  any  individual  is  divided  against  itself,  what  else  is 
there  for  it  to  do  but  to  fall — -and  to  keep  falling  eternally 
in  failure  and  distress  and  oblivion  until  death  finally  puts 
an  end  to  it  all  ?  Verily,  the  principle  of  the  divided  house 
operating  within  the  mind  of  man  is  the  cause  of  far  more 
human  misery  than  anything  else  operating  in  the  whole 
world.  Little  perhaps  did  the  poet  Gray  dream  of  this 
when  he  wrote  the  following  lines  in  his  Elegy  in  a  Country 
Churchyard : 

Perhaps  in  this  neglected  spot  is  laid 

Some  heart  once  pregnant  with  celestial  fire; 

Hands,  that  the  rod  of  empire  might  have  swayed, 
Or  waked  to  ecstasy  the  living  lyre. 

But  knowledge  to  their  eyes  her  ample  page, 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  time  did  ne'er  unroll ; 

Chill  penury  repressed  their  noble  rage, 
And  froze  the  genial  current  of  the  soul. 


167  The  Bible.     Attributed  to  Jesus  in  Matthew  12:25. 


PSYCHIC  EE-EDUCATION  267 

Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 

The  dark  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean  bear, 

Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air. 

Some  village  Hampden  that  with  dauntless  breast 
The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood; 

Some  mute  inglorious  Milton  here  may  rest, 

Some  Cromwell  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood. 

The  Epitaph 

Here  rests  his  head  upon  the  lap  of  earth, 
A  youth  to  fortune  and  to  fame  unknown; 

Fair  science   frowned  not  on  his  humble  birth. 
And  melancholy  marked  him  for  her  own. 

If  the  educational  forces  of  the  world  could  only  under- 
stand that  the  highways  and  byways  of  life  are  literally 
thronged  and  choked  with  people  everywhere  who  carry 
about  with  them  wherever  they  go,  silently  and  secretly,  the 
very  mystery  of  their  failure  and  lifelong  misery — their 
crushed  dreams  and  hopes  and  ambitions!  If  humanity 
only  knew  the  great  fountain  haunts  of  the  desert  air  of 
life,  by  which  the  choicest  flowers  are  withered  away !  If 
they  only  knew  the  name  and  the  place  of  all  the  most 
hideous  ''dark,  unfathomed  caves  of  ocean" !  If  they  only 
knew  what  it  is  that  assigns  to  troubled  oblivion  its  count- 
less gems  ' '  of  purest  ray  serene ! "  If  the  world  only  knew 
just  why  it  is  that  for  the  countless  multitudes  of  life's 
labors  ' '  Chill  penury  repressed  their  noble  rage.  And  froze 
the  genial  current  of  the  soul"!  I  say  that  if  civilization 
only  knew  that  the  blasting  breath  of  fear,  converting  the 
human  mind  into  a  Sahara  of  wreckage  and  desolation,  is 
the  one  mighty  secret  as  to  why  *'Some  mute  inglorious 
Milton  here  may  rest"!  If  humanity  only  knew  that  the 
greatest  crime  known  to  eternity  is  the  planting  or  the  per- 
mitting of  seeds  of  fear  in  the  mind  of  a  child!  If  the 
world  only  knew  that  between  hobgoblins,  devils,  demons, 
bogey-men,   corporal  punishment  and   a  Supreme  Being 


268  THE   PURPOSE    OF  EDUCATION 

whose  chief  characteristic  is  wrath  and  revenge,  humanity 
has  been  perpetually  on  the  cross  of  a  living  death — then 
the  world  would  see  the  real  meaning  of  the  observations 
made  by  Thomas  Gray — and  understand  that  the  call  for 
the  psychic  re-education  of  all  civilization  is  the  very  first 
voice  to  which  the  world  should  lend  its  ear. 

Now,  if  civilization  were  really  true  to  its  name,  then 
indeed  civilization  might  well  be  defined  as  so  many  escapes 
from  fear.  But  since  civilization  has  not  been  true  to  its 
name,  but  has  rather  lived  continually  under  a  usurped 
name,  the  real  escapes  from  fear  have  been  few — for,  while 
in  point  of  chronological  order,  fear  is  one  of  the  very  first 
of  all  emotions,  it  is  still  with  us — still  abroad  in  the  land 
as  a  withering,  pestilential  breath — still  the  same  old  ac- 
quired trait  due  to  the  world's  elaborate  machinery  for  per- 
fected education  therein !  At  the  same  time  the  intensity 
of  fear  and  the  ultimate  effects  of  fear  remain  the  same  age 
after  age.  As  one  writer  has  said :  *'No  matter  how  refined 
we  are,  we  fear  in  the  same  terms  of  the  same  old  gross 
organs  and  functions  as  do  the  brutes.  We  fear  in  the 
heart,  the  lungs,  the  skeletal  muscles,  the  brain,  the  kidneys 
and  the  stomach — and  sweat  because  this  was  once  neces- 
sary in  order  to  regulate  the  temperature  in  violent 
effort 'V®^  The  same  author  says  again:  **Fear^^^  is  a 
pathis,  obsessive,  so  concrete  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  was 
long  hel.d  to  be  a  morbid  entity,  or  even  that  Brown-Sequard 
thought  that  he  could  inoculate  its  bacilli". 

Indeed  after  its  full  swing  down  through  the  ages,  so 
tremendously  far-reaching  and  destructive  and  organicly 
undermining  are  the  effects  of  fear  that  an  authority  on 
this  subject  is  led  to  speak  as  follows:  ''"We  might  almost 
say  that  Nature  had  not  been  able  to  frame  a  substance 
which  should  be  excitable  enough  to  compose  the  brain  and 
spinal  marrow,  and  yet  should  not  be  so  excited  by  excep- 
tional stimulation  as  to  overstep  in  its  reactions  those  psy- 

168  G.  Stanley  Hall:  Am.  Jn.  Psyeh.,  April,  1914,  vol.  xxv.,  page 
195. 

169a  Stanley  Hall:  Am.  Jn.  Psych.,  vol.  viii.,  No.  2,  1897,  page 
243. 


PSYCHIC   EE-EDUCATION  269 

chological  bounds  which  are  useful  to  the  conservation  of 
the  creature  ".''° 

Think  of  it !  Mosso  's  suspicion  is  that  fear  is  so  fun- 
damentally overwhelming  in  its  destructiveness  that  it  has 
actually  outdone  Nature  in  the  ability  of  her  nervous  sub- 
stance to  cope  therewith !  Let  us  think  of  that  if  we  will ! 
Behold  fear — that  psychic  fraud  and  traitor  that  is  too 
much  for  the  processes  of  Nature!  Fear — ^that  lamb-like 
beast  which  has  crushed  from  the  lion  its  courage  and  sub- 
stance !  Fear — that  pest  of  the  psychic  world,  which  should 
have  been  cast  off  ages  ago  with  all  her  trappings  of  related 
ignorance ! 

The  word  fear  in  itself  may  look  very  simple,  but  its 
nature  is  such  that  it  attacks  and  deteriorates  the  entire 
psychic  fibre  of  each  and  every  organism  that  it  touches. 
Fear  eats  the  very  heart  out  of  creation — in  exactly  the  way 
that  Mosso  has  just  said.  It  is  the  most  deadly  enemy  that 
the  Universe  has  ever  known — ^because  in  addition  to  its 
organic  attach,  it  nullifies  every  act  of  the  will  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  leave  its  victim  in  a  permanent  state  of  the 
most  abject  slavery.  It  does  this  all  the  more  completely 
because  of  the  accusing  fact  that  most  of  the  fetters  of  fear 
are  forged  in  childhood — ^by  parents,  teachers,  playmates, 
neighbors,  strangers.  The  arch  enemies  of  childhood  are 
therefore  pretty  largely  those  very  persons  who  would 
gladly  lay  down  their  lives  for  them. 

Now  here  is  the  consideration  before  us:  Psychic  re- 
education should  have  proceeded  by  marked  degrees  from 
century  to  century  down  through  the  past.  But  it  has  not. 
Therefore  it  must  begin  noiv.  That  process  must  be  pri- 
marily through  the  psychic  re-education  of  society,  of 
civilization,  itself — for  just  as  long  as  the  *' accumulated 
wisdom"  of  the  race  is  simply  nothing  of  the  kind,  then 
must  the  individual  be  eternally  subject  to  the  inheritance  of 
a  false  social  environment.  That  has  been  the  condition 
in  the  past — and  it  is  the  condition  in  the  present — and 
it  will  continue  to  be  the  condition  in  the  future,  until  such 

170  Angelo  Mosso:  Fear,  page  295. 


270         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

time  as  civilization  purges  itself  of  its  accumulated  igno- 
rance and  stupidity. 

Let  us  note  therefore  that  psychic  re-education  means  a 
purification  of  all  our  concepts.  For  the  individual,  for 
example,  as  well  as  for  society,  psychic  re-education  is 
going  to  involve  more  than  the  attainment  of  courage 
through  the  driving  out  of  fear.  It  is  going  to  mean  more 
than  the  self-realization  of  that  spirit  of  which  Whyte- 
Melvile  has  spoken  somewhere  in  referring  to  a  fox — ''His 
heart,  like  his  little  body,  was  multum  in  parvo,  tough, 
tameless  and  strong  as  brandy '  \  Psychic  re-education  will 
be  more  embracing  than  the  priceless  jewel  that  we  have 
called  courage.  Among  other  things,  our  work  of  psychic 
housecleaning  will  embrace  the  setting  up  of  absolute  can- 
dor and  honesty  as  one  of  the  essential  bases  of  the  har- 
monized mind.  As  a  condition  it  will  be  somewhat  com- 
parable to  the  justice  of  Plato,  but  its  fundamental  bear- 
ing will  be  rather  that  of  justice  to  self — because  no  real 
mental  harmony  is  at  all  possible  where  deceit,  falsehood 
and  treachery  exist ;  for,  the  moment  that  any  individual  is 
the  conscious  possessor  of  such  traits  he  begins  living  at  once 
in  a  double  world :  a  world  of  actual  inward  reality,  and  a 
fraudulent  world  of  outward  pretending. 

Of  course,  on  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
all  mental  dishonesty  and  insincerity  is  very  largely  the 
product  of  fear.  The  very  moment  that  fear  begins  to 
operate  in  the  mind  of  any  child,  that  moment  mental 
candor  takes  its  flight.  That  moment  psychic  deceit  steps 
in.  That  moment  our  individual  becomes  a  seeming  and 
defensive  one.  That  moment  treachery,  silence  and  reti- 
cence take  possession  of  the  mind.  That  moment  self- 
consciousness  is  born.  That  moment  introversion  begins. 
That  moment  the  great  insidious  taproots  of  self-condemna- 
tion convert  the  entire  mental  organization  into  a  wilder- 
ness of  obnoxious  and  worthless  weeds. 

We  are  thus  confronted  by  the  great  fact  that  the  ac- 
cepted principles  and  laws  of  moral  action  must  center 
themselves  in  the  human  mind — hut  the  world  thus  far  does 


PSYCHIC   RE-EDUCATION  271 

not  know  it.  The  reasons,  for  example,  why  one  should 
neither  lie  nor  steal,  outside  of  the  fact  of  injury  to  others, 
are  by  no  means  the  ones  ordinarily  given — ^those  based 
upon  mere  external  pronouncements  of  a  prohibitory 
nature.  The  reasons  do  not  at  all  fundamentally  rest  in 
any  supremely  authoritative  injunction  to  the  effect  that 
"Thou  shalt  not".  Such  pronouncements  are  but  crys- 
tallized rules  of  action.  The  real  reasons  therefor,  when 
once  all  the  lights  of  understanding  are  turned  on,  are  seen 
to  be  purely  psychic  in  their  essential  essence.  The  re- 
quirements of  mental  harmony  demand  the  presence  of 
those  conditions  that  are  prerequisite  thereto.  Anything 
that  savors  of  falsehood  and  deceit  is  of  course  directly  an- 
tagonistic to  those  requirements.  Consequently,  we  m-ay 
set  it  down  as  a  fact  that  in  general  any  life  philosophy  is 
right  only  in  proportion  to  the  degree  that  it  finds  its 
sanction  in  the  field  of  inner  mental  harmony.  It  is  funda- 
mentally on  the  basis  of  psychic  results  that  human  conduct 
must  be  governed.  What  an  individual  soivs,  that  also 
shall  he  reap  is  not  all  a  vindictive,  artificial  and  external 
proposition.  It  is  purely  a  question  of  iinescapable  psy- 
chology. The  world  would  be  much  better  off  today  if  instead 
of  the  utterly  fallacious  and  childishly  ridiculous  dogma 
of  theological  hell-fire,  there  were  provided  the  actual 
truth — that  of  psychological  and  physiological  hell-fire  here 
and  now — and  if  indeed  there  be  a  hereafter  then  a  psycho- 
logical hell-fire  of  psychic-torment.  In  othe-r  words,  it  is 
about  the  unseen  biological  laws  operating  in  the  living 
human  brain  that  the  motives  and  the  results  of  human 
conduct  must  center. 

Psychic  re-education  demands  therefore  that  every  social 
thought-crudity  make  its  hasty  exit  from  the  shores  of  our 
civilization.  In  my  opinion,  nothing  could  be  more  mon- 
strous in  its  effects,  for  example,  than  the  artificial  creation 
of  an  artificial  hell  and  an  artificial  purgatory  for  the  pur- 
pose of  scaring  people  into  right  conduct  by  means  of  hold- 
ing up  before  the  mind  the  fear  of  ultimate  punishment. 
It  is  monstrous,  because  in  the  first  place  it  is  built  upon 


272         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

fear;  and  in  the  second  place  it  is  built  upon  the  blackest 
falsehood  that  ever  darkened  the  planet;  and  in  the  third 
place  it  paralyzes  the  logical  faculties  of  the  world  with 
unspeakable  stupidity;  and  in  the  fourth  place,  it  decoys 
with  its  juggling  the  eyes  of  humanity  away  from  the  real 
truth — away  from  the  actual  hell  and  the  actual  purgatory 
of  the  Universe :  The  great  law  of  Cause  and  Effect  oper- 
ating right  within  the  precincts  of  the  human  mind  itself. 
I  say  that  anything  which  steers  mankind  away  from  the 
truth,  instead  of  toward  the  truth,  is  a  curse. 

Now  it  is  not  my  intention  at  all  to  minimize  or  deny 
in  any  particular  the  principle  of  punishment.  Rather  do 
I  emphasize  the  fact  that  it  is  a  principle.  It  follows  vio- 
lated law  naturally.  I  deny  that  it  follows  any  artificial 
whim  mechanically.  I  also  deny  that  there  is  anything  vin- 
dictive about  any  punishment  that  is  not  administered  by 
the  hand  of  man.  Punishment  is  simply  the  inevitable 
penalty  of  violated  law.  That  is  one  principle  which  must 
be  deeply  ingrained  in  the  psychic  re-education  of  the 
world.  I  emphasize  over  and  over  again  that  punishment 
is  a  natural  thing.  This  Universe  is  by  no  means  so  un- 
sufficient  unto  itself  as  to  require  any  artificial  bolstering 
up  from  the  outside  by  means  of  such  childishly  mechanical 
devices  as  Dante  has  described  to  us.  The  laws  of  the  Uni- 
verse, I  say,  can  take  care  of  themselves.  They  are  not 
built  upon  idiocy.  Slap  any  single  one  of  Nature 's  laws  in 
the  face,  be  that  law  physical  or  psychical,  and  see  how 
positively  Nature  will  slap  back — and  that  too  with  a  good 
high  rate  of  compound  interest  thrown  in !  It  is  not  at  all 
necessary  for  Nature  to  yell  ''Fire'*  or  ''Murder"  or 
' '  Help ' '  for  the  purpose  of  getting  some  assistance  from  the 
outside,  in  order  to  enable  her  to  whip  to  the  uttermost  any 
person  who  would  presume  to  violate  her  laws.  By  no 
means  is  this  Universe  constructed  so  ridiculously  as  that. 
Attached  to  every  law  in  the  Universe  is  its  own  provision 
for  complete,  inevitable  and  adequate  punishment  in  case 
that  that  law  is  infringed  upon.  If  anyone  doubts  this 
fundamental  proposition,  let  him  walk  through  any  insane 


PSYCHIC  EE-EDUCATION  273 

asylum,  any  hospital,  or  any  invalids'  home — or  into  any 
mercurial  paradise  of  the  world,  such  as  Hot  Springs, 
Arkansas — and  if  the  observer's  eyes  are  open,  he  should 
soon  come  to  the  conclusion  that  I  am  speaking  the  truth. 

Furthermore,  social  law  works  in  conjunction  with 
natural  law,  producing  in  the  mind  of  the  individual  cer- 
tain states  of  consciousness.  It  is  through  this  point  of 
contact  between  the  two  sets  of  laws,  natural  and  social, 
that  I  put  forth  the  proposition  that  as  far  as  mankind  is 
concerned,  all  law  centers  its  operation  and  its  effects  in  the 
human  mind.  It  is  in  the  mind  of  man  that  we  must  look 
for  the  reward  of  all  good  conduct,  and  for  the  punishment 
of  all  evil  conduct.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  this  principle  that 
the  psychic  re-education  of  the  world  must  proceed. 

And  it  is  on  this  very  same  basis  that  the  day  for  such 
re-education  must  be  hastened.  The  world  has  already  too 
long  put  up  with  the  shameful  results  of  a  life  philosophy 
that  is  built  upon  the  thought-crudities  of  pagan  supersti- 
tion and  pagan  ignorance.  Instead  of  the  mechanical  mo- 
tive of  fear,  we  must  substitute  the  natural  motive  of  love 
and  law.  Instead  of  some  postponed,  vindictive,  artificial 
and  whimsical  punishment,  we  must  substitute  a  punish- 
ment that  is  immediate,  remedial,  natural  and  logical.  The 
eyes  of  the  world  must  be  centered  upon  the  monumental 
fact  that  psychic  and  physical  and  social  law  is  constantly 
at  play  in  the  human  mind — and  that  it  is  on  that  battle- 
field alone  that  each  individual  is  either  crowned  with  gar- 
lands or  crucified  with  thorns.  This  great  fact  must  com- 
mand the  attention  of  every  civilization — ^while  every 
superstition,  every  falseliood,  every  tradition,  every  dogma 
that  would  blind  and  seal  the  eyes  of  mankind  to  truth, 
must  be  driven  out  bodily  into  the  dark  night  of  past  ignor- 
ance, whence  they  have  come. 

I  would  emphasize  once  more,  therefore,  that  in  the 
work  of  psychic  re-education,  first  of  all,  society  must 
reorganize  its  body  of  concepts.  It  must  get  rid  of  all 
those  notions  which  run  counter  to  truth  and  law  and 
logic.     For  example,  in  the  direction  and  discipline  of  child- 


274  THE   PURPOSE   OF  EDUCATION 

hood,  society  must  root  out  of  its  philosophy  all  that  part  of 
its  alleged  culture  which  rests  upon  fear.  This  will  take 
away  every  ghost  and  every  hobgoblin  with  which  children 
are  terrified.  It  will  take  away  cowardice  and  implant  in 
its  stead  courage.  It  will  eliminate  all  terrorism  and  all 
violent  outbursts  of  anger  in  the  treatment  of  every  child. 
It  wiU  also  take  away  from  our  social  culture  all  the  de- 
basing and  destructive  fears  which  pagan  religions  have 
fastened  upon  us. 

It  is  thus  by  a  social  refinement  and  social  rebirth  of 
the  concepts  that  we  entertain,  that  society  will  be  in  pos- 
session— not  of  an  alleged  * '  accumulated  wisdom ' ',  but  of  a 
real  truth-culture  that  will  be  both  safe  and  worthy  to  pass 
on  to  the  individual.  Psychic  re-education  must  plainly 
depend  on  society's  having  in  its  tenure  just  such  a  culture 
on  which  to  feed  the  person  who  is  being  elevated  into  the 
species.  Just  as  long  as  society's  cuUure  is  falsehood, 
just  that  long  will  society  saturate  the  human  mind  with 
rubbish  and  deadly  poison.  The  true  measure  of  society's 
culture  may  be  said  to  lie  in  society's  attitude  toward  the 
Universe.  If  that  attitude  is  fear — ^then  the  resulting  cul- 
ture is  savagery.  If  the  attitude  is  utter  defiance  or  denial 
— then  the  corresponding  culture  is  brutality  and  stupidity. 
If  the  attitude  is  merely  to  idealize  the  Universe,  and  sing 
its  beauties  and  harmonies — that  is  blind  art.  But  if  the 
attitude  is  to  learn  its  laws  as  they  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being  in  the  mind  of  man — then  society's  culture  is 
science.  No  civilization  on  the  globe  has  ever  yet  reached 
that  last  stage  of  culture.  Psychic  re-education  points  out 
the  way  "by  which  it  may  be  reached.  Thus  far  no  society 
has  ever  gotten  beyond  the  stages  of  blind  art.  Of  course, 
along  mechanical  lines  the  scientific  stage  is  reached  every- 
where— but,  bear  in  mind,  we  are  now  talking  under  a  new 
order:  About  man — and  not  machines.  I  say  that  the 
stage  of  human  science  has  never  been  reached  in  history. 
That  is  why  I  say  that  the  psychic  re-education  of  the  world 
must  begin  now — and  march  on  forever! 

The  next  chapter  will  be  the  final  one. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

BIOLOGICAL  INTEGRITY 
CONCLUSION  AND  SUMMARY 

In  the  writing  of  this  book  I  have  had  a  plan.  That 
plan  has  been  to  talk  seriously  to  civilization  everywhere 
about  the  most  important  question  that  one  could  ask  in 
the  entire  field  of  human  affairs — The  Purpose  of  Educa- 
tion. It  has  been  the  burden  of  my  efforts  to  show  that 
in  the  consciousness  of  aim — and  in  the  rightness  of  aim 
— and  in  the  specificness  of  aim — lies  the  real  dynamite 
of  everything.  I  have  tried  to  show  that  the  actual  value 
of  all  educational  endeavor  must  forever  rest  upon  the 
degree  with  which  educational  consciousness  is  engulfed 
with  the  importance  of  the  purpose  concept;  upon  the 
detailed  and  unassailable  accuracy  of  that  purpose;  and 
upon  the  unyielding  persistence  with  which  that  purpose 
is  held  ever  in  mind  at  every  single  step.  My  plan  has 
been  to  place  in  the  sky,  as  it  were,  a  great  sign-board 
calling  the  attention  of  the  world  to  the  fact  that  the 
end-point  of  education  is  a  matter  of  serious,  solemn  and 
immediate  concern  for  every  civilization  on  the  globe. 

The  reader  is  of  course  familiar  by  this  time  with  my 
procedure  from  chapter  to  chapter.  In  the  very  begin- 
ning I  laid  down  the  proposition  that,  although  educa- 
tion is  incomparably  the  most  important  problem  ever 
undertaken  by  the  human  race,  that  problem  has  never 
been  solved  right — that  it  .still  remains  the  same  old 
Sphinx  by  the  roadside  today  as  it  was  in  the  lost 
centuries  of  immemorial  antiquity.  The  widespread 
prevalence  of  intense  human  misery  in  the  form  of  crime, 
disease,  unrest  and  poverty  was  accepted  and  submitted 
as  most  ample  evidence  that  education  has  failed  miser- 

275 


276  THE    PUEPOSE    OF    EDUCATION 

ably  to  answer  correctly  the  instinctive  and  longing  cry 
of  mankind  for  the  truth  that  would  make  them  free. 
But  I  went  further.  I  showed  that  education  today  is 
asleep  at  the  switch — so  sound  asleep  that  it  is  not  even 
conscious  of  what  it  is  that  ought  to  be  the  mightiest 
mountain  peak  within  its  entire  dominions:  Purpose. 
When  .education  was  asked  in  chapter  two  what  the 
greatest  question  is  that  might  be  raised  in  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  whole  world — education  was  aroused 
out  of  a  heavy  Rip  Van  Winkle  slumber.  Upon  awak- 
ing, it  was  astounded  at  such  a  question.  Then  when 
education  began  formulating  its  answers,  it  talked  with 
about  as  much  depth  of  perception  in  the  field  of  fun- 
damental educational  values,  as  a  child  in  the  first  reader. 
None  of  its  submitted  answers  were  entitled  to  live  for 
ten  seconds  as  final  satisfaction  for  the  question  that  had 
been  asked.  The  answers  that  education  gave  were  over- 
whelmingly in  the  category  of  chimney  stuff — up  in  the 
gallery  tinkering  with  skylights  before  the  foundations 
were  laid.  All  of  the  answers  in  question  were  splendid 
secondary  or  tertiary  material — but  not  a  single  one  of 
them  consisted  of  substance  that  was  primary.  They  all 
confused  secondary  things  with  essential  things. 

Then  in  the  third  chapter  my  own  answer  to  my  own 
question  was  given.  That  answer  was,  that  the  great- 
est possible  question  that  one  could  ask  in  the  field  of 
education  is  this,  namely :  What  is  the  purpose  of  education? 
That  interrogational  answer  came  as  another  shock  to  the 
educational  world — for  the  reason,  first,  that  education  did 
not  have  anything  so  foolishly  simple  as  that  on  its  mind ; 
and,  second,  for  the  reason  that  education  has  long  been 
laboring  under  the  profound  delusion  that  it  had  set- 
tled the  purpose  of  education  a  long  time  ago — or,  more 
properly  speaking  perhaps,  that  educational  purpose  is 
a  sort  of  self -settler  that  doesn't  require  any  conscious 
attention  from  anything  or  anybody. 

My  next  step  came  in  chapter  four,  when  education 
was  asked  what,  in  its  opinion,  the  true  purpose  of  edu- 


CONCLUSION  AND   SUMMAEY  277 

cation  is.  All  told,  six  of  its  prevailing  purposes  were 
considered,  in  addition  to  a  number  of  side  comments  by 
various  educational  leaders.  But  all  of  those  answers 
and  comments,  upon  being  weighed  in  the  balance,  were 
found  wanting.  None  of  them  measured  up  to  the  basic 
demands  of  the  sacred  thing  that  we  call  education.  The 
chief  criticism  offered  against  current  educational  pur- 
poses in  that  chapter  was,  that  those  purposes  are  too 
vague,  too  general,  too  incidental,  too  secondary,  too 
commentary-like  in  nature.  None  of  them  are  funda- 
mental. Not  one  of  them  focuses  educational  attention 
upon  the  one  eternal  goal  from  which  education  must 
never  let  its  gaze  fluctuate  for  even  a  second.  As  state- 
ments intended  for  some  other  field  than  iiltimate  pur- 
pose, each  of  the  answers  and  comments  in  question  would 
be  eminently  true  enough.  But  when  it  comes  to  the 
great  foundation  of  purpose,  then  each  and  every  one 
of  education's  submitted  answers  must  be  branded  as  a 
usurper  of  the  most  dangerous  type.  Think — any  way 
— of  the  mere  fact  that  education  has — ^not  one  purpose  of 
education,  but  at  least  six! 

The  reader  will  next  recall  that  in  chapter  five  my 
own  purpose  of  education  was  advanced,  namely:  The 
purpose  of  education  is  to  guarantee  the  biological  in- 
tegrity of  the  individual.  By  this  it  was  meant  that  the 
first  great,  instinctive,  universal  and  inalienable  right  of 
every  individual  is  that  of  spiritual  self-preservation — 
that  endowment  which  gives  to  every  individual  the  in- 
nate sense  of  self-poise — self-security — self-poiver — self- 
command — self-respect —  self -approval  —  self -justification: 
That  development  which  enshrines  every  individual  with 
the  spirit  of  courage — leaving  no  single  trace  of  cowardice 
— no  trace  of  fear — no  trace  of  self-consciousness — no 
trace  of  self-condemnation — no  trace  of  introversion — no 
trace  of  anything  which  might  in  any  way  tend  to  break 
down  the  granite  of  sound  psychic-personality.  It  was 
shown  that  the  real  criterion  of  education  is  not  any 
mountain  of  facts  that  may  take  up  their  residence  in 


278  THE   PUEPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

the  human  mind — hut  positively  the  degree  of  inner  mental 
harmony  that  exists  within  that  same  mind.  The  thesis 
was  set  forth  that  no  coward  is  entitled  to  be  called 
educated,  since  cowardice  is  the  one  sure  guarantee  that 
biological  integrity  does  not  exist  for  that  individual.  The 
fruits  of  mental  harmony  were  shown  to  consist  primarily 
of  courage.  Where  biological  integrity  obtains,  the  in- 
dividual easily  and  unceasingly  endures  his  own  presence 
and  existence.  But  where  it  does  not  obtain,  then  we  have 
the  case  of  the  coward  silently  shot  through  and  through 
with  the  degrading  spirit  of  self-apology.  Biological  in- 
tegrity therefore  hinges  upon  courage.  In  that  same  chap- 
ter the  further  fact  was  introduced  that  the  setting  of 
our  educational  stage  must  shift  from  society  to  the  in- 
dividual. It  was  emphasized  that  the  individual  himself 
must  be  made  the  end  of  education — and  that  society  is 
only  the  means  of  education.. 

But  further  analysis  led  to  the  fact  that  the  one  thing 
that  has  ever  stood  as  an  eternal  foe  and  enemy  of 
biological  integrity  is  the  world-wide  beast  that  we  call 
fear.  That  fact  was  developed  in  considerable  detail  in 
chapters  six,  seven,  eight  and  nine.  In  terms  of  both 
psychic  and  physical  arguments,  fear  was  shown  to  be 
the  most  appallingly  destructive  monster  in  all  the 
Universe.  It  was  pointed  out  at  much  length  that  fear 
is  the  murderous  outlaw  and  the  insidious  traitor  that 
has  had  biology  by  the  throat  for  ages.  Its  victims  have 
been  both  man  and  beast.  Even  today,  in  the  very  heart 
of  so-called  twentieth  century  civilization,  the  great  ravish-  j 
ing  field  of  operation  for  this  most  deadly  of  all  serpents 
is  the  holy  and  delicate  mind  of  childhood. 

It  is  of  course  unnecessary  to  repeat  here  the  unspeak- 
able misery  and  the  colossal  outrage  that  fear  thus  works 
upon  the  typical  individual  as  he  walks  up  and  down  the 
avenues  of  life,  ever  carrying  with  him  the  great  burdens 
that  are  his — in  the  form  of  cowardice — crucified  expression 
— ^introversion — self-condemnation — and  every  psychic  and 
physical  disease   that  has  ever  tortured  mankind— with 


CONCLUSION   AND   SUMMARY  279 

every  instinctive  vestige  of  biological  integrity  within 
him  crushed,  withered  and  blasted  before  his  very  eyes 
— to  haunt  and  hound  and  humiliate  at  every  footstep — 
and  all  because  a  purposeless  education  has  been  holding 
forth  in  the  world.  And  thus  it  is  that  one  might  say 
in  a  different  phraseology  that  the  purpose  of  educa- 
tion is  to  keep  fear  out  of  the  human  mind.  I  say  ''to 
keep  fear  out"  because  it  gets  into  the  mind  from  the 
outside  through  the  contact  of  the  individual  mind  with  the 
''accumulated  wisdom  of  the  race". 

The  problem  of  education  is  therefore  overwhelmingly 
an  esoteric  one.  Past  education  has  ever  been  blinded  by 
thinking  of  its  problem  in  exoteric  terms.  It  is  exoteric 
obsession  to  the  point  of  fanaticism  that  has  closed  the  eyes 
of  the  world  for  twenty-three  centuries  to  the  great  edu- 
cational philosophy  of  Plato.  Present  day  educational 
leaders  have  been  so  crazed  over  the  thought  of  adjust- 
ment as  the  final  word  in  education — and  so  enthused  over 
comparatively  childish  projects  of  every  kind — that  the 
infinite  world  of  inner  mental  adjustment  has  never  even 
occurred  to  them.  Plato's  great  scheme  of  mental  harmony 
has  consequently  gone  begging  before  the  very  eyes  of  those 
educational  physicians  who  have  claimed  right  along  to 
have  the  ability  to  diagnose  and  prescribe  correctly  for 
a  suffering  mankind. 

In  this  connection  it  will  be  recalled  that  in  chapter 
ten  the  educational  doctrine  of  Plato  was  given  with 
detailed  analysis — perhaps  the  first  serious  attempt  that 
has  ever  been  made  to  interpret  and  present  what  Plato 
has  stood  for  in  education.  The  keystone  of  that  great 
man's  doctrine  was  seen  to  center  about  the  hannonized 
mind,  the  cornerstone  of  which  was  to  be  courage.  We 
saw  that  Plato  made  education  primarily  consist  of  driv- 
ing fear  and  cowardice  from  the  human  mind — and  that 
his  first  concern  was,  not  society,  but  the  sou7id  i^idivid- 
ual  in  society.  It  was  shown  conclusively  that  Plato  was 
eminently  a  practical  man,  and  totally  undeserving  of 
the  charge  of  ^'Oriental  asceticism* \    The  fact  was  further 


280  THE    PUEPOSE    OF    EDUCATION 

emphasized  that  while  Plato  nowhere  used  a  term  compar- 
able to  biological  integrity — ^yet,  in  its  essential  substance, 
that  was  the  very  principle  for  which  the  man  pleaded 
throughout,  in  both  Republic  and  Laws.  I  therefore  claim 
to  have  the  spiritual  sanction  of  Plato  for  every  argument 
that  I  am  putting  forth  in  this  book. 

Then  in  chapter  eleven  the  significance  of  courage 
versus  cowardice  was  considered  in  greater  detail,  and 
the  point  brought  out  that  courage  is  the  one  instinctive 
right  and  desire  and  guarantee  of  every  individual  in  the 
Universe.  By  the  use  of  abundant  references  from  litera- 
ture it  was  seen  that  courage  is  a  trait  that  has  always 
been  universally  extolled — and  cowardice  one  that  has 
been  just  as  universally  condemned.  The  fact  was  brought 
out,  however,  that  cowardice  is  a  manufactured  product — 
that  cowards  are  made,  and  not  born — and  that  accordingly 
the  coward  himself  is  not  to  be  blamed,  but  pitied.  The 
only  thing  at  all  that  is  blameworthy  in  the  case  is  society 
with  its  elaborate  fear-culture — that  institution  which  guar- 
antees a  coward  for  almost  every  surviving  birth. 

It  was  then  in  chapter  twelve  that  the  great  evil  of  in- 
troversion was  dealt  with — that  inward-turning  of  the 
human  mind.  The  thesis  was  sustained  that  expression 
is  the  first  law  of  all  growth  and  development — and  that 
accordingly  nothing  can  be  more  dangerous  than  to  deny 
the  right  and  exercise  of  normal  expression — and  that 
furthermore  wherever  that  right  is  denied,  then  the  mind 
must  become  in-growing,  instead  of  out-growing — the  pro- 
cess of  which  we  have  called  introversion.  In  addition  to 
the  bearing  of  repression  thereon,  the  meaning  of  fear  was 
also  shown  in  that  same  direction,  together  with  the  disas- 
trous resulting  products  of  self -consciousness  and  self- 
condemnation.  It  is  of  course  not  my  purpose  to  repeat 
any  of  those  detailed  arguments  here — further  than  to 
emphasize  once  more  that  introversion  is  one  of  the  deadly 
prowlers  that  helps  to  strangle  biological  integrity  in  its 
very  lair. 

Then  finally  it  was  shown  in  chapter  thirteen  that 


CONCLUSION  AND   SUMMAEY  281 

since  the  human  mind  is  wrong  in  manifold  ways,  it  must 
he  made  right.  The  world  must  make  a  sweeping  psychic 
housecleaning.  The  mind  of  civilization  must  be  furnished 
anew.  The  name  given  to  that  process  was  psychic  re- 
education. Fundamentally  that  re-education  must  be  a  so- 
cial one,  since  it  is  impossible  to  give  to  the  individual  a 
new  education  until  such  time  as  the  mind  of  society 
itself  becomes  re-purified — because  for  any  education  that 
any  individual  succeeds  in  getting  he  must  primarily 
depend  on  what  he  absorbs  from  the  prevailing  culture 
of  the  environment  in  which  he  lives.  Society  must  there- 
fore get  rid  of  every  thought-crudity  and  every  element  of 
so-called  culture  that  might  tend  to  feed  the  individual 
upon  error  rather  than  truth.  In  particular,  society  must 
have  such  a  psychic  re-education  that  every  vestige  of  fear 
is  driven  from  the  world,  especially  the  child  world. 
In  other  words,  if  biological  integrity  is  to  obtain  among 
mankind,  then  everything  that  hinders  that  integrity 
must  be  banished  from  our  social  and  individual  atmo- 
sphere. Psychic  re-education  is  therefore  distinctly  needed 
as  a  guiding  concept  in  any  program  of  education  which 
would  place  upon  the  brow  of  every  individual  the  mark 
of  positive  personality  and  the  signature  of  that  mental 
harmony  immortalized  by  Plato. 

And  thus  we  arrive  at  the  present  chapter,  having  fol- 
lowed carefully  the  plan  that  was  laid  down  in  the  begin- 
ning, and  having  developed  step  by  step  the  meaning  and 
the  justification  of  the  principle  which  has  so  many  times 
been  referred  to  as  biological  integrity.  No  further  argu- 
ments now  remain  to  be  offered.  There  are,  however,  a  few 
explanatory  thoughts  which  may  be  offered  before  closing — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that  there  is  not  a  single  one  of 
the  preceding  chapters  which  might  not  have  been  treated 
at  considerably  greater  length. 

But  let  us  go  on.  The  reader  will  note  that  throughout 
this  work  a  very  frequent  use  of  the  term  individual  has 
been  made.  It  now  becomes  necessary  for  me  to  explain 
that  matter  somewhat.    Never  in  speaking  of  the  individual 


282  THE    PUEPOSE    OF   EDUCATION 

have  I  at  any  time  had  in  mind  individuality.  That  thought 
must  be  made  clear.  I  have  not  been  talking  about  individ- 
uality at  all.  No  place,  for  example,  has  the  intent  of  my 
thesis  been  anything  like  that  touched  upon  by  one  writer 
when  he  expresses  himself  as  follows:  "In  attempting  to 
standardize,  the  curriculum  has  ignored  the  needs  of  the 
individual  child  "/^^  Dewey  is  here  talking  about  the  fact 
of  individual  variation — the  fact  that  no  two  individuals 
are  exactly  alike — the  fact  that  no  two  persons  can  be  ac- 
corded precisely  the  same  treatment  if  we  are  to  expect  the 
best  educational  results.    Dewey  is,  of  course,  right. 

But  that  is  not  the  argument  that  has  concerned  me  in 
even  the  slightest  particular.  I  am  talking  about  the  ulti- 
mate aim  in  education — and  say  that  it  is  the  biological 
integrity  of  the  individual,  by  which  I  mean  the  sacred 
right  of  all  persons  to  the  priceless  principle  of  psychic 
sanity.  As  far  as  my  theme  is  concerned,  eliminate  indi- 
viduality from  the  plan  of  creation  entirely — do  away  with 
variation  altogether — make  all  individuals  alike — and  my 
message  to  humanity  would  remain  unchanged — and  that  is, 
that  education  is  a  monumental  failure  owing  to  the  fact 
that  its  principles  and  its  purposes  contain  no  provisions 
anywhere  for  the  building  of  a  good  human  being  in  the 
abstract.  Education  has  never  charted  the  basic,  common 
needs  of  every  individual,  regardless  of  what  his  individu- 
ality might  be — therefore,  how  would  it  be  possible  for 
education  to  square  itself  with  truth  were  there  no  such 
thing  as  individuality  ?  Or,  granting  that  our  educational 
leaders  along  with  society  attempted  ''to  systematize  and 
standardize'^  less,  and  thus  cater  markedly  to  the  principle 
of  individuality,  how  would  it  still  be  possible  for  education 
to  cure  its  patients,  merely  by  drawing  upon  its  present 
stock  of  prescriptions,  varying  their  compounding  to  suit 
the  taste,  and  regulating  the  size  of  the  dose  to  the  peculiar 
needs  of  each  patient?  In  other  words,  how  would  it  be 
possible  for  a  defective  education  to  meet  all  comers  when 
it  has  so  abundantly  proven  in  the  past  that  it  is  not  able 

171  John  Dewey:  Schools  of  Tomorrow,  page  41. 


CONCLUSION   AND   SUMMAEY  283 

to  meet  even  the  commonest  comer?  The  ridiculosity  of 
blaming  Nature's  law  of  variation  for  the  shortcoming  of 
educational  performance  should  be  apparent  to  everyone. 

Well,  I  trust  then  that  I  have  made  myself  clear  in  the 
distinction  that  I  have  drawn  between  the  individual  as 
used  by  myself  and  by  others.  While  others  have  in  mind 
individuality,  I  have  in  mind  nothing  of  the  kind.  I  merely 
and  exclusively  submit  the  proposition  that  in  the  great 
game  of  education  we  must  at  all  times  keep  our  eye  on  the 
ball — and  furthermore  that  the  ball  positively  is  not  society 
— it  is  the  individual.  This  proposition  does  not  aim  in  the 
least  to  minimize  the  great  value  and  indispensability  of 
society.  It  is  simply  drawing  a  century-upon-century- 
delayed  distinction  between  means  and  e^ids. 

But  this  distinction  is  of  the  most  appalling  importance 
— because  it  is  fundamental  through  and  through.  Society 
is  a  means  only.  Let  us  never  forget  that.  The  individual 
is  the  end.  From  this  there  is  absolutely  no  escape  what- 
ever. Here  and  now,  education  must  resign  and  reform 
itself  to  this  fact. 

Now,  those  who  do  not  understand  will  think  that  this 
distinction  means  the  destruction  of  society.  But  it  means 
nothing  of  the  kind.  On  the  contrary,  it  means  just  the 
reverse.  It  means  the  supplying  of  society  with  individuals 
enormously  more  perfected  than  they  are  at  the  present 
time.  It  means  a  society  of  individuals  endowed  with 
psychic  sanity  rather  than  with  psychic  chaos  and  psychic 
anarchy.  It  means  a  society  of  individuals  whose  substance 
is  health  and  harmony  rather  than  disease  and  discord; 
whose  fibre  is  courage  rather  than  cowardice ;  whose  essence 
is  love  rather  than  fear.  Wliat  an  awful  tragedy  it  would 
be  for  society  to  consist  of  individuals  psychicly  sane  and 
physically  sound!  Would  that  not  be  a  most  shocking 
calamity!  But — ^then — perhaps  society  simply  could  not 
endure  at  all  unless  the  great  majority  of  its  individuals 
were  neurotic  wrecks,  whose  life  sustenance  has  been  cow- 
ardice, chaos  and  fear!  Some  way  or  other  I  had  never 
once  thought  of  that ! 


284  THE    PUEPOSE    OF    EDUCATIOK 

Still  I  cannot  lielp  lingering  longer  on  this  soil.  Where,  I 
ask  society,  ultimately  lies  all  of  her  troubles  ?  Why,  with 
her  individuals,  most  emphatically!  I  say  that  individual 
causes  lie  at  the  base  of  all  social  complications.  It  is  in 
the  individual  that  society  collapses.  But  let  society  pretty 
much  thank  herself — because  she  has  never  looked  to  the 
perfection  of  the  individual.  No  wonder  that  the  machine 
which  we  call  society  is  constantly  out  of  order  and  break- 
ing down — the  individual  parts  that  enter  into  that  machine 
are  faulty  to  the  last  degree,  not  in  their  quality,  but  in  their 
construction.  Out  of  chance,  neglected,  haphazard  parts, 
society  would  build  a  good  machine — but  I  say  to  society 
that  she  is  doomed  until  she  changes  her  plans — ^until  she 
shifts  her  gaze  from  the  machine  to  the  perfection  of  the 
parts  that  make  the  machine.  The  time  to  make  a  machine 
is  when  you  make  it.  Any  mechanic  will  tell  you  that.  But 
society's  formula  for  making  a  machine  is  to  throw  scraps 
of  junk  together — and  then  spend  the  rest  of  a  lifetime 
trying  to  make  repairs  fast  enough  to  keep  up  with  the 
breakdowns — thanks  to  the  hypnosis  of  that  childish  glee 
which  renders  one  blind  to  things  elemental  and  elementary ! 

I  say  that  man  must  be  made  absolutely  the  center  of 
all  shifting  circumstances.  That  center  can  never  be  so- 
ciety— never  be  civilization — never  be  liberty — ^never  be  cul- 
ture. Those  things  are  but  the  frame  of  our  picture.  The 
picture  itself  is  man,  the  individual — and  whatever  that 
picture  is,  never  worry:  It  will  always  be  appropriate  to 
the  frame. 

But  here  society  asks :  What  shall  we  do  ?  I  answer : 
Pitiful  heavens — get  your  gaze  away  from  the  frame,  and 
look  at  the  picture !  How  this  is  to  be  done  has  been  my 
ceaseless  effort  throughout  the  range  of  this  book. 

I  have  reiterated  over  and  over  again  one  message  (and 
no  doubt  to  the  point  of  extreme  monotony) ,  but  I  will  say 
it  again:  The  psychic  sanity  of  the  individual  is  the  one 
and  only  antitoxin  for  the  ills  and  the  evils  of  the  world. 
It  will  be  recalled  that  Plato's  formula  for  such  sanity  is 
an  education  which  harmoniously  unfolds  the  mind  with 


CONCLUSION  AND   SUMMARY  285 

reference  to  the  three  major  elements  of  courage,  justice 
and  temperance.  Now  if  education  is  not  to  consist  of 
exactly  what  Plato  has  called  for,  then  what  wonder  is  it 
that  society  is  one  endless  conservatory  of  rogues  and 
rascals  and  robbers  and  hypocrites  and  murderers  and 
prisons  and  asylums  and  divorces  and  sin  and  crime  of 
every  color!  What  wonder  that  we  have  millionaires  and 
mendicants!  What  wonder  that  gorged  indolence  and 
famished  industry  abound  everywhere !  What  wonder  that 
"civilization''  is  a  process  of  endless  war,  with  95%  of  its 
wealth  permanently  dedicated  to  the  hellish  policy  of  battle- 
ships and  bayonets  and  poison  gases !  What  wonder  when 
our  educational  gods  have  converted  the  human  mind  into 
a  storage  bin  for  intellectual  chaff! 

But  the  spirit  -and  the  substance  of  all  that  procedure 
must  change.  Civilization  must  symmetrize ;  it  must  pre- 
vent by  the  soundness  of  its  education  every  disproportion 
in  the  mind  of  man.  It  must  build  human  mentalities  that 
are  true  in  their  multiple  inner  dimensions.  Above  all, 
society  must  exalt  man  far  ahove  the  popular  current  in- 
fidelities  to  truth,  humanity,  justice. 

But  it  is  useless  to  argue  further  in  this  direction.  Both 
education  and  society  must  be  left  to  see  for  themselves — 
or  else  they  shall  never  see  at  all. 

There  is  one  tragedy,  however,  that  I  cannot  forget — 
and  that  is,  that  humanity  is  at  the  stake.  It  is  beset  with 
terrors.  I  take  this  to  mean  that  something  is  wrong.  To 
me  it  means  that  our  educational  caravan  is  on  the  wrong 
route.  Education  is  wrong  because  the  context  of  life  has 
been  lost.  Across  the  great  trade  routes  of  life  sweep  the 
chords  of  the  soul.  We  must  therefore  explore  the  foun- 
dations of  education  in  our  own  nature.  But  we  are  in- 
habiting billows — and  we  need  a  ship.  **As  sheep  having 
no  shepherd",  humanity  plods  on  oblivious  to  the  violated 
laws  that  make  slaves  of  all.  It  is  in  this  way  that  educa- 
tion— a  great  angel — has  unwittingly  been  performing  the 
work  of  a  great  demon — ^by  regularly,  incessantly  and  un- 
molestedly  letting  the  gigantic  Trojan  horse  of  fear  into 
the  mind  of  man. 


286  THE    PURPOSE    OF    EDUCATION 

In  saying  tliis  I  but  speak  frankly.  And,  indeed,  I  have 
spoken  frankly  throughout.  Unless  I  speak  plainly  and 
frankly  the  thoughts  within  me,  then  better  a  thousand 
times  that  I  remain  silent.  If  there  be  those  who  enter- 
tain the  notion  that  I  have  at  any  time  spoken  too  frankly, 
then  let  me  remind  them  that  when  a  sick  man  is  tossing 
at  the  point  of  death,  it  is  not  the  time  to  waste  precious 
moments  telling  him  what  pretty  eyes  and  teeth  and  hair 
he  may  have!  The  thing  to  do  then  is  to  deal  with  the 
man's  sickness  hy  diagnosing  it  and  showing  how  it  is  to 
he  cured.  Neither  therefore  have  I  been  concerned  in  this 
book  with  praising  some  or  any  of  the  trifling  perfections 
of  education.  The  main  concern  with  me  is,  that  we  have 
a  dangerously  sick  man  on  our  hands — and  for  the  time 
being  I  care  nothing  whatever  about  the  cut  of  his  shoes  or 
the  cut  of  his  hair.  We  have  already  had  puttering  and 
sputtering  enough  in  education.  In  my  opinion  it  is  high 
time  that  we  at  least  make  a  serious  attempt  at  educa- 
tional statesmanship.  Furthermore  if  one  would  under- 
stand our  educational  landscape  he  had  better  be  viewing 
its  mountains  and  its  valleys,  rather  than  out  trying  to 
count  all  of  the  rocks  and  the  bushes.  Then  later  on  when 
the  high  tidal  wave  of  ignorance  shall  have  passed  away, 
leaving  the  white  sands  beneath,  we  shall  gather  up  the 
present  scattered  jewels  of  education  and  store  them  away 
in  the  casket  of  permanent  attainment. 

But  for  the  immediate  hour — and  for  all  time — I  would 
lessen  the  pain  and  vulnerability  of  the  world.  To  sit  weep- 
ing by  the  grave  should  not,  in  my  opinion,  be  the  per- 
manent occupation  of  mankind.  Education  must  be  made, 
not  a  decorative  adjunct,  but  life  itself  transfigured  and 
ennobled — through  a  universal  acquaintance  with  the  psy- 
chic laws  of  being.  Education  must  be  made  to  wear  the 
color  of  the  spirit — for  the  springs  of  power  are  in  the  in- 
terior chambers  of  the  soul.  What  the  frame  of  the 
mind  is — that  is  the  one  hope  of  the  world.  That  alone  is 
basic  truth.  That  is  the  one  real  social  explosive — **safe, 
sure,  serviceable,  attainable''. 


CONCLUSION   AND   SUMMARY  287 

But  in  contrast  with  such  a  desideratum,  our  education 
is  wobbly  to  the  point  of  the  comic.  It  teaches  people 
the  names  of  a  few  mountains — the  locations  of  a  few  rivers 
— and  the  capitals  of  a  few  states — and  then  it  tells  them 
that  they  are  educated!  Why,  there  isn't  a  greater  piece 
of  false  pretense  in  the  whole  world!  Educated!  A  few 
petty  facts  in  the  intellect — and  then  an  army  of  vacant 
victim-souls  turned  adrift  in  the  world!  I  want  to  tell 
you  that  if  humanity  should  wake  up  to  this  fact  all  at 
once,  somebody  is  going  to  get  hurt ! 

My  warning  to  education  is,  that  no  amount  of  commonly 
accepted  educational  facts  shovelled  into  the  mind  of  any 
human  being  can  ever  educate  anyone.  It  is  not  education, 
for  example,  to  know  the  famous  three  R's — no  matter  how 
great  the  mastery  in  them.  Neither  is  it  education  to  be 
master  of  any  other  purely  intellectual  tasks.  No  matter 
how  desirable  and  indispensable  such  social  and  individual 
acquisitions  may  be — they  nevertheless  do  not  constitute 
education,  save  in  a  suhsidiary  sense.  The  sacred  name 
and  sacred  honor  of  education  must  be  reserved  at  all  times 
for  the  state  of  hiological  integrity  that  exists  and  obtains 
within  the  mind  itself.  It  were  better  a  million  times  over 
to  be  an  illiterate  and  be  endowed  with  the  priceless  treas- 
ures that  mental  harmony  stands  for,  than  to  be  the  first 
scholar  in  the  world  and  at  the  same  time  a  victim  of  a 
psychic  organization  whose  integrity  has  been  destroyed — 
whose  mental  universe  is  fear,  cowardice,  introversion,  self- 
consciousness,  self-condemnation. 

I  am  simply  saying  that  the  real  disease  of  the  world  is 
not  intellectual  illiteracy  at  all — not  in  the  least — though 
let  no  person  pride  himself  for  a  minute  that  he  is  a  greater 
enemy  of  such  illiteracy  than  I  am.  The  real  disease  of 
the  world  is  psychic  illiteracy:  Things  are  wrong  on  the 
inside  of  the  human  mind— for  the  human  mind  stands 
today  as  the  rubbish  heap  of  the  ages.  This  is  so  chiefly 
because  the  world's  education  is  suffering  from  the  captive 
spell  and  inertia  of  conservatism— that  inferno  which  is 
mesmeric — that  corrosive  force  which  preserves  the  status 


288         THE  PUEPOSE  OF  EDUCATION 

quo.  It  has  been  one  of  the  tragedies  of  life  and  education 
that  most  people  have  always  been  ready  to  recommend 
their  own  personal  experiences  to  others — whether  it  is  a 
grave  digger  who  has  studied  infinitesimal  calculus,  or  a 
hod  carrier  who  has  studied  Sanskrit — and  that  too,  without 
ever  stopping  to  inquire  into  the  possible  existence  of  far 
better  fields  that  have  never  been  touched.  It  is  that  spirit 
which  has  partly  helped  to  keep  the  dark  shadows  of  educa- 
tional conservatism  stalking  around  in  our  midst. 

And  thus  it  is  that  I  want  to  send  out  to  the  whole  world 
the  solemn  and  warning  message  that  the  educational  sys- 
tems of  the  age  nowhere  make  contact  with  profound 
educational  philosophy.  Those  systems  are  so  imperfect  in 
their  basic  conceptions  as  to  what  education  should  consist 
of,  that  the  more  perfect  they  become  along  their  chosen 
and  projected  lines,  the  worse  it  will  be  for  civilization — 
because  perfection  in  error  as  a  science  can  never  do  any- 
thing but  lead  farther  and  farther  away  from  truth.  The 
world's  educational  leaders  are  merely  flitting  and  skim- 
ming along  the  surface  of  things,  like  so  many  barn  swal- 
lows darting  hither  and  thither  over  vast  meadows. 
Our  ** trained'*  teachers  are  therefore  not  trained  at 
all — ^because  they  are  pastured  in  the  fallacious  philos- 
ophies of  blind  leaders.  They  are  trained  in  the  wrong 
thing :  The  concept  of  giving  to  man  a  stuffed  mind,  rather 
than  a  state  of  mind — the  concept  of  intellectuality,  rather 
than  psychicaUty,  The  what — ^the  principle — the  content — 
of  our  education  is  false — and  no  amount  of  mere  peda- 
gogical juggling  with  the  how — the  formula — or  the 
method — can  ever  make  it  right. 

Finally,  I  have  faith  that  there  is  to  be  a  new  and 
glorious  dawning  in  education.  If  I  mistake  not,  the  light 
of  the  stars  already  grows  dim — and  in  due  time  it  will  be 
morning.  I  see  the  world — not  at  all  deserting  in  full  all 
of  her  exoteric  shrines — but  rather  embracing  a  new 
shrine — an  esoteric  one — set  up  in  the  midst  of  them  all. 
This  new  shrine  is  both  gigantic  and  central.  It  looks 
down  upon  the  world's  exoteric  shrines  like  some  mighty 


CONCLUSION   AND   SUMMARY  289 

Aetna.  This  colossal  shrine  is  the  human  mind  itself, 
glorified  with  a  harmony  that  will  go  far  toward  healing 
the  wounds  of  a  long-suffering  world.  "Within  the  shadows 
of  this  shrine  an  infinite  calm  and  poise  will  know  no 
cowardice,  and  know  no  fear.  The  long-silent  voice  of  the 
great  Plato  will  at  last  be  heard — and; 

**Then  virtue,  it  appears,  wdll  be  a  kind  of  health  and 
beauty  and  good  habit  of  the  soul;  and  vice  will  be  a  dis- 
ease and  deformity  and  sickness  of  it".^^^ 

Such  will  be  the  new  education  when  consciousness  of 
purpose  comes  first ;  when  that  purpose  is  the  correct  one, 
an  esoteric  one — the  hiological  integrity  of  the  individual; 
when  society  is  only  the  means,  and  the  individual  is  the 
end;  when  fear,  cowardice,  introversion,  self -consciousness 
and  self-condemnation  are  driven  from  the  earth;  when 
courage,  self-trust,  self-possession  and  self -approval  are 
glorified  as  the  holiest  altars  of  the  human  temple;  when 
childhood  is  looked  upon  as  the  playground  and  the  quarry 
of  everything  that  is  holiest  and  most  prophetic  in  Nature ; 
when  the  clear  concept  of  psychic  re-education  grips  the 
world;  when  mankind  bows  down  and  worships  at  the 
sacred  shrine  of  psychic  harmony :  That  is  the  new  dawn- 
ing and  the  new  day  that  I  see  for  a  new  education. 

It  is  my  trust  that  I  have  confined  myself  to  the  quick- 
ening and  to  the  birth  of  such  an  education  in  the  endeavor 
w^hich  I  hope  only  begins  here. 

172  Plato:  Republic,  page  151. 

THE    END. 


19 


^ 


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